


Effortlessly

by fundamentalBlue, VexedBeverage



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Getting Together, IronHawk - Freeform, M/M, Past Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Steve is a bit of a bully, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25922926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fundamentalBlue/pseuds/fundamentalBlue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VexedBeverage/pseuds/VexedBeverage
Summary: When Tony offers him a place at the tower, he takes it, despite the fact that life has always been tit for tat, and Tony must want something in return. Some kind of control or dominance over Clint and his life. Clint has nothing to give anymore, not that he ever did. Still, he moves in, taking with him all of his meager belongings. There’s no trinkets between Coulson and him. No photos or cards. It’s alright. It’s always been alright.Clint could never afford to be sentimental about possessions before anyway.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Tony Stark
Comments: 58
Kudos: 266





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story is complete. Will update weekly. Hope you enjoy! We had a lot of fun collaborating on this.
> 
> Thanks OCLuna for the beta!
> 
> The author Vexedbeverage also did the art in chapter 5, which is AWESOME.

There’s a humming in the back of his head. It flutters, whispers and _taints_. It’s cold and slimy, like slugs slithering through his brain, pulsating with every beat of his heart. Natasha’s arm is heavy around him, like shackles, like chains. She means it to be an anchor, but Clint is still drifting away. Where was he when it happened? Did he have an arrow nocked, ready to betray the people who had taken him in, who had given him a life? 

It doesn’t matter, because Coulson is _gone_. His body is sequestered somewhere in the bowels of SHIELD. Clint doesn’t want to look. That’s not Coulson, not anymore. He wonders if he’s still Clint Barton. Maybe he’s Loki’s toy still. Maybe he no longer belongs to anyone. 

He still sees Coulson at his desk, fingers delicately shuffling paper before he looks up at Clint, the thin line of his mouth curled up at the edges. Clint has kissed that mouth, burrowed in past those lips to lick teeth and tongue. It’s always been stolen moments; they both live—lived on base, and Coulson is his handler. A relationship between them wasn’t disallowed, but it wasn’t encouraged either. He understood that Coulson needed to maintain some impartiality, even if Natasha already knew what was going on between them. Their relationship existed outside of missions. It was locked away behind equally locked doors, not to be seen or heard or speculated about by anyone but the two of them. 

There was a time Clint had been lost, lost like he is now. Rudderless, beaten, empty. It makes him feel as though he was never found in the first place. Of all the things that Clint had been able to trust were true in the world when he first came to SHIELD, it was himself and that people inevitably hurt you. He just never realized that he was _people_ , and he would inevitably betray and hurt those he loved. Like Coulson. 

There’s a hole in his chest. Clint thinks that maybe he’s feeling what Coulson felt before he died. Before Clint wasn’t there, like Coulson is no longer there. But even though Nat is in the know, he doesn’t feel he can play the grieving widow in front of anyone. Coulson had always been circumspect with their relationship, his firm hands holding Clint at a distance, keeping their decorum intact. He remembers Coulson’s disapproval when Clint sought affection during work more than he does the times where he received any contact at all. 

Clint got it. He understood. It was work, and work was everything to Coulson. And couples, they sacrificed for each other. Clint had put these needs on the altar for their relationship. Besides, it wasn’t Coulson’s fault he was a clingy little shit. He wanted too much and he always had. 

There’s a part of him that’s free now. And he wants it to have to do with Loki. But thoughts of Loki only invoke anger, and thoughts of Coulson make him feel—unrestrained. Exempt from what he should be feeling. He’s so fucked up, but the tears he should be shedding for his lover don’t come. Clint doesn’t think he has the capacity to shed them anymore, and he isn’t sure if that was something he had been missing longer than Coulson had been gone or not. 

When Tony offers him a place at the tower, he takes it, despite the fact that life has always been tit for tat, and Tony must want something in return. Some kind of control or dominance over Clint and his life. Clint has nothing to give anymore, not that he ever did. Still, he moves in, taking with him all of his meager belongings. There’s no trinkets between Coulson and him. No photos or cards. It’s alright. It’s always been alright. 

Clint could never afford to be sentimental about possessions before anyway. 

He explores the tower with the thoroughness of the spy he thinks he’s always been. Even when he was young, his powers of observation, his sheer will to survive, led him to see things others didn’t. It’d saved his life so many times that he didn’t even question the way he saw things. And he saw a lot. 

The tower is empty, unlived in. It has everything anyone could want in its fully stocked kitchen and appointed living room. He’s not sure if he should touch anything, it’s so new. 

He hears Tony before he sees him, the man muttering to himself, oblivious in a way that Clint could never be. 

“Clint, hey. Last time I saw you we were kicking alien ass in that giant catastrophe of a battle, and the time before that? Well.” Tony sticks out his hand, and Clint surprises himself by responding in kind. He doesn’t like touching people he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s the way Tony offered first. Clint knows the others at SHIELD had been avoiding him, keeping their distance from the man who turned on them all. Maybe it was some kind of hold over from saving the world with the guy, that sort of thing has got to leave a mark somehow.

“You say catastrophe; I say fuck yes.” Clint throws on his nonchalant mask, responding in kind to Stark’s banter. Stark barks out a laugh and goes over to his wet bar, pouring himself something amber colored. 

“You want?” Tony asks, gesturing at Clint with his glass. 

Clint shakes his head and heads over to the couch, practically throwing himself down on it and slumping against the cushions. 

“You settling in okay?” Tony asks as he approaches the couch. “Your room missing anything that you need?” 

“The suite is great.” Clint replies with a smirk. “Not sure why the bed is big enough for six or why you thought I needed enough kitchen equipment to start my own restaurant but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.” 

“Oh,” Tony takes a sip of his drink and sits down in the armchair adjacent to the couch. “Sorry, I get carried away sometimes and—” 

Clint cuts him off. 

“Why are you apologizing? I was trying to say thank you.” 

Tony’s eyebrows bunch together for a split second, so fast that Clint is sure someone else might have missed it. Tony shrugs his shoulders before swallowing down more of his drink. 

“I do have a question.” Clint says after the silence drags on for a beat too long. “Can I get pizza delivered here or do I have to go out and collect it?” 

Tony laughs again, the small amount of tension that was still in his shoulders flows out of him. 

“Yeah, you can order pizza. Just give them your name and tell them to deliver it to the tower. Security will take it and JARVIS will let you know it’s here.” 

Clint grins at him for a second then Tony downs the rest of his drink and makes his way over to the bar again for a refill. Clint thinks that’s a bit too much, but he’s not one to judge what Stark chooses to do in his own home. 

“Once or twice I may have even had security put the food in the elevator and had JARVIS bring it up to the Penthouse when I didn’t want to go downstairs and get it.” Tony meanders back, propping himself up on the armrest of the armchair, like he has to be ready to leave a moment’s notice. 

Clint huffs in amusement. 

“I guess they don’t call you a genius for no reason, huh?” 

Clint needs to rein it in. Tony is surprisingly easy to talk to, and he is falling back on false bravado; his masks will start to slip soon and he cannot afford that. 

Tony doesn’t respond to Clint’s rhetorical question, instead he regards Clint with a raised brow for much longer than is strictly comfortable. 

“So Clint, do you ever take off that costume?” Tony leans up against the bar, the long lines of his body emphasized by the dress pants he’s wearing paired with a tight t-shirt, giving the impression of lean but well-defined muscle. He must be fit to walk around in a metal suit. It has to be hot inside of it. Clint thinks it’s all about the image for Stark. 

“Do you ever take off yours?” 

“Ouch.” But Stark looks anything but hurt. Glass in hand, he focuses on Clint, and Clint knows then why people consider Stark a genius. He doesn’t need his tech to see this truth. And Clint always sees. 

“To answer your question, yes, I have civilian clothes. Do I like to wear them? No.” Coulson always wanted him to be ready, and Clint remembers he wants what Coulson wants—wanted. Or he wants to want it. More times than not, it’s the latter. He should have been a better boyfriend. 

The air between them tightens with Tony’s gaze, and suddenly Tony averts his eyes, as if he’d been caught doing something not allowed. Clint wonders what it is, but watches Tony fold in on himself without stopping it or breaking the tension. 

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then.” He’s always doing things wrong, Clint thinks of himself, as Stark shuffles out of the room. 

\-- Tony --

In the weeks after Clint showed up, one by one the Avengers moved in. He likes—should like—it. And he does. He likes Clint and the man’s propensity for ventilation systems. He likes Nat and her ridiculously proficient sparring skills. He likes Thor’s fascination with poptarts. He really likes Bruce, his science bro. So why can’t he like Captain America? Oh, he knows. Because Captain America does not like _him_.

It’s so personal, so linked to everything Tony is. And Tony can’t stop being himself, and thus Cap can’t stop hating Tony. 

They fight, bicker, and argue relentlessly, and it is not _fun_. Not like how Tony usually does it. It feels like clawing at one another, deep scratches that rend his person, his very identity. 

It starts with the tablet that Tony has given Steve. Puttering around in his workshop, Tony notices a news feed that says something about Russia, and he figures Cap hasn’t really caught up with politics of any kind, so he spends time having JARVIS synthesize a primer by loading a few articles that are cut down to size into a document that explains the history of the politics and sends it off to Cap. 

Soon, Tony is sending a few more articles here and there, things about the state of Germany and its past, stuff that Steve might be interested in seeing about how things shook out from his time. 

It’s at breakfast that Cap approaches him and tells him, ‘you don’t need to do that Tony.’ To which Tony nods and thinks yeah maybe he’s going overboard. He should think of a solution that doesn’t involve so many notifications. 

Which he does in the form of a new tablet that he wrote an entirely new operating system for, just so that Cap can search around a little bit easier and get the news. It’s funny to think that if grandpa Cap alpha tests this OS to be acceptable, it’d be perfect for old people. He should have thought of this sooner for accessibility reasons. 

Of course, he gives Cap the tablet at dinner time, and launches into an explanation of its facets and abilities. 

“You can just click this and it’ll give you definitions and history on the issue. Much simpler than me sending you those articles.” 

“Tony, please, you really didn’t have to do this.” 

“Ah, it’s fine Cap. Didn’t cost me any time at all.” Tony takes in the fact that Cap is tight lipped still, likely unhappy at having to learn a new OS. He probably should have thought of that one. 

But it all comes to a head within the next week when he presents improved boots to the man. Ones that have a surer grip for Cap’s extra special parkour abilities and are made of a substance that’s much better than kevlar and far more breathable. No getting shot or stabbed in the feet for Rogers. 

“It’s not that I don’t think you should make new gear for me, but you didn’t ask. You never ask! You just do.” Nostrils flaring, Cap gestures at the boots as if they’ve done something to personally offend him. 

“It’s new boots Cap, not a tattoo that I somehow needled onto you while you were asleep!” Tony raises his voice a fraction louder than Cap’s. 

“It’s _my stuff_. Learn to mind your own business! I’ve already told you that I don’t want any of this sort of thing. Don’t you have other work to do?” Tony almost flinches at Cap’s sweeping arm gestures, having to tense his muscles to stop any evasive reflexes. He doesn’t want to get clocked with Captain America’s hands of steel. 

“You never said that. You never— I would have heard that and respected it.” And he would have. But Tony is sure he’s never been told no, absolutely. He’ll look over the footage later. 

“Look, if you actually spent time with people, instead of locked in your workshop with JARVIS, you’d know what I meant.” Cap sounds desperate, pleading. “JARVIS isn’t a person, Tony. Yet he’s the only thing you regularly talk to that talks back. Everything he says is a reflection of you. Which means you’re not getting any real, human contact.” Tony is stunned. 

“JARVIS isn’t— he’s not— That’s not fair.” Tony stutters, feeling like his breath has been knocked out of him as forcefully as if Cap has punched him in the stomach. Cap doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get who JARVIS is. Cap doesn’t understand that JARVIS has been the only thing between Tony and complete and utter destruction more times than he can count. He doesn’t know that JARVIS was the only consistency that Tony can expect in his life and that even then, when the man had died, Tony had to make him from code and memories to ensure some kind of stability that was lacking from anyone else. 

“What’s not fair is looking for something that belongs to you, only to find that it’s gone and something you’ve never used before is in its place. Please, Tony, please. _Stop_.” Cap pointedly ignores what Tony was really saying, which was about JARVIS. JARVIS, both the human and the AI, have been there for Tony through every facet of his life. 

“Yeah, yeah— I get it, ok, I’m sorry. I won’t—I won’t do anything without asking. You’re right.” The ground is very interesting to Tony right now, rather than Steve’s face. He knows he’s fucked up, badly. He shouldn’t have done anything without talking. Why can’t he be normal? JARVIS is a friend, but Cap is right, JARVIS isn’t enough, even if he’s not what Cap says he is. JARVIS IS a person. Tony has stripped all the commands for JARVIS to stay here with Tony a long time ago. His AI is here because he wants to be here. And that means it’s a choice. 

Tony’s arms cross and he grabs his shoulders, trying to shrink down. He’s going to lose it. He’s already losing it. And Steve can _see_. Steve can’t be allowed to see. 

“Tony…” Steve trails off. 

Tony flees. He practically runs to the workshop, past Clint whose head swivels as Tony goes by in that odd, observant way of his. And Tony loathes that everyone else knows what happened. What always happens with Cap. The one benefit of it all is that Tony doesn’t have to explain to anyone why he’s avoiding them all. Everyone heard their argument. How could they not? 

It’s not even the first time they’ve gone at each other. Or rather, Steve has gone at him.

Tony spends too much money on Steve. He doesn’t need to buy Steve new-age snacks that the man has never tried. He keeps giving Steve things, even though Steve glowers at him as he holds whatever it is in his hand. 

This is what Tony knows. It’s how he gives. And without the aid of gifts, he doesn’t know how to handle Cap.

So Tony makes a plan. He’s not particularly good at plans, but Cap plans, so Tony tries to channel that. He’s not going to make stuff for Cap, or otherwise press anything onto him. If Cap wants something taken care of, he can come to Tony. 

He tries to tell himself he’s not being devious by forcing Cap to come to him, to speak to him as one would a normal human being. But he’s at his wit’s end otherwise. Asking Nat for help would only make his sense of embarrassment worse. He’s Tony fucking Stark, and he’s never been this much of a fish out of water before in his life. 

Of course, it doesn’t work. 

“We need our gear to be field reliable Tony. The handle on my shield snapped mid-fight. That can’t happen! Quit taking things to extremes! Just repair the gear, and don’t create wild upgrades without discussion. How hard is it to use your words Tony?” Steve’s face is straining, a large vein twitching at his temple. Tony is reminded of the myth of spontaneous human combustion, and wonders if the serum could allow something like that to actually happen. 

“I thought you’d come to me if there were any issues. I really did!” He shouts back. 

“Because our field gear is somehow in my wheelhouse? I’m a soldier Tony, not an engineer.” It’s not like Cap lets Tony near his shield. He’s become protective of his gear, hiding it in his closet when he’s finished and locking his bedroom door as if Tony would invade his space. It makes Tony’s chest feel tight and hollow. He’d never just wander into someone’s bedroom like that.

“Right. Right, I’m sorry. I’ll keep an eye out for problems and get to them ASAP.” He’s going to have to ask Cap every so often. He’s not looking forward to it. 

“Look, Tony, I don’t want to fight like this. If you could just be less… you. Just do enough and stop trying to do _more_ all the time.” Less Tony. Yeah. He knows he’s a lot. He really does. It’s not the first time someone has asked for Tony to tone it down. He guesses that even superheroes have their limits for how much they’re willing and able to tolerate. 

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot Cap. Ride that middle line. You got it.” Steve sighs, as if he hasn’t gotten through to Tony at all, and strides off with purpose to some place where Tony is not. It’s ok. 

Tony has his workshop. Which is where he goes now to recalibrate his expectations. AKA burying his problems. He works on all sorts of things in the meantime, scrolling through one project after another as if the next one he falls upon will take away the churning feelings in his gut. 

It turns out all his hiding is unnecessary, because as soon as he leaves his lab, he passes by Steve’s open door. He’s not directly looking, but he looks, and it’s empty. Cap is gone. 

“He told me to tell you he moved out, back to SHIELD.” Nat stands at attention, slipping in from nowhere. 

“Ah, well, uh, ok.” 

“It’s not your fault, Tony.” He doesn’t want to look at her face, at all. The pity there will end him. 

“Seems like it is,” he mumbles and strides away, trying to escape the scrutiny he knows he’ll see in Nat’s face. 

All he ever wanted was Cap’s consideration, hell, maybe his friendship. But the more he tries, the worse it gets. He should have given up, should have left the poor man alone. Who wants to be friends with a sad, washed up little rich boy? Not Steve Rogers, that’s for certain.

It all makes sense. 

\-- Clint --

This first couple weeks he’s there, Clint destroys parts of his room. He should care about his space, about the fact that none of this is his, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t give a flying fuck. Each knife embedded in the wall feels like satisfaction. Each hole from his fists is like coming home. Clint is only good when he’s fighting, so he fights everything. 

It starts with Nat, where the thing that should have tied them closer together, the loss of Coulson, drags them apart. The closer she gets to Clint, the more he loathes her. He’s angry that she’s alive, and that she wasn’t the one that Loki mind controlled so that he would have been there protecting Coulson. All he can feel is outrage when she tries to put her hand on his shoulder. Resentment eats at him.

It’s not that he wishes she was dead in Coulson’s place. He just hates that she’s alive and Coulson isn’t. And he wishes she would fucking stop trying to make it better. Things aren’t going to _get_ better. 

They didn’t let him see Coulson after it happened. He doesn’t know why he didn’t ask, why he couldn’t just ask. Everyone who mattered, knew about them. But he was frozen, disbelieving it had happened. He still didn’t quite believe. Maybe Coulson would call him, he’d go into SHIELD, and he’d be at his immaculate desk, with that patient smile he always has. The one that looks like he had secrets to tell Clint. 

But it was ever so slowly dawning on him that the day would never come. Coulson was fucking dead. Gone. Ended. And it was Clint Barton’s fault and his _responsibility_ to make it up to his boyfriend for the rest of his life. And what had he done so far? He couldn’t even kill Loki. 

No, that fuckface had gone straight to Asgard with Thor, and as good as it was to see that asshole muzzled and leashed, he would have looked better with a hole through his chest. Just like the one that had been in Coulson. Otherwise, what else had Clint done? Oh yeah: fucked around, hung out away from SHIELD, declined missions. 

He’s useless.

In the Helicarrier, he’d stared at the bloodstain for a long time. The small smattering of it not scrubbed clean as of yet, just lingering there, waiting for something. Waiting for Clint to apologize to it, to make it un-happen. 

But he can’t. He’s just that fucking helpless. 

If only Nat would just _go away_. But it’s like every corner he turns around, she’s there, picking him apart without meaning to. Seeing what she isn’t supposed to. 

He’s been searching the tower for days for a place that Nat won’t go, but even the vents aren’t safe.

Which is how he discovers the workshop. 

He knows that JARVIS knows he’s there, perched on the high ceiling beams of the spacious room. Tony needs a lot of space to work, so it only makes sense that the ceiling is double the height of the other floors. It’s perfect for hiding, and the first time he goes there, Tony isn’t there at all. 

Natasha tries the door after a few hours. He can hear her calling his name through the wall, and he grimaces. 

“JARVIS, don’t let her in.” 

“As you wish, sir.” Clint stays silent and unmoving, anticipating the moment where he’ll be alone again.

Nat leaves after ten unsuccessful minutes of fiddling with the door. JARVIS is a miracle worker. 

“Finally.” All he wants is to be alone with his fucked up feelings. Is it awful of him if a part of him is glad that Coulson is gone? There’s no reason to go into SHIELD anymore. Nothing to hide but himself. And he’s no fool to think that Fury and Hill didn’t know about him, but they were never a public item. 

At the time, he told himself he liked it. Now, he’s not so sure. The clandestine meetups, the moments where their hands dropped away from each other at the slightest noise in the hallway, the times Coulson waved him off without so much as a glance, makes him feel like he only ever got pieces. 

But then there were those moments where Coulson would ground him, hold him close and breathe into his neck like that was what he needed to live. He can still feel the curving shape of Coulson’s lips at his pulse point, the skin underneath fluttering with need. There was never anything as good as that, even when Coulson cupped him through his pants, hand tight across his cock. 

But he shouldn’t be thinking of this. Coulson is dead. He’s gone. There won’t be a person to protect from himself anymore. No stolen kisses or Clint begging to be taken over Coulson’s desk. No stolen days away from SHIELD where Clint could pretend they were a normal couple doing normal things. 

Clint spares a look around the shop now. Bits of metal and wire are everywhere, and Tony’s desk is filled with a veritable buffet of tech. He can even see some arrows sticking out here and there, and he’s definitely curious, but not curious enough to come down. As if leaving his perch to invade Tony’s space is a step too far. Which, he’s a spy, so he shouldn’t care about that. But he does. 

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear, Clint thinks. 

“It is your fault. It’s always your fault,” Tony mutters as he enters the lab. Tony’s robots rise up from their charging stations and begin to hover in the peripheral, trying to hand Tony things as he waves them off. 

“No god, please don’t poison me Dum-E. U, put the fire extinguisher down.” Clint watches the bots do what amounts to a dance around Tony, trying to engage his attention. He thinks that Tony likes it. The playful nature of Tony’s tech is something Clint has never considered before. JARVIS has always been filled with snark, but it’s the first time Clint has made the connection that it started with Tony. 

He realizes he’s just sitting here, spying. So he leaps down to the ground behind Tony. Neither Tony nor the bots notice, so he clears his throat. Tony jerks up and off his stool, dislodging a few parts on the table with his arms as he pinwheels around to see Clint standing there. 

“Oh, uh, hi.” Tony looks shaken, and Clint wonders what has got him looking like Clint feels.

“What’s eating you?” And if Clint is truly curious, well that’s his business, isn’t it? Maybe he just sees a kindred spirit in Tony. Someone who didn’t make it back from the battle of New York in one piece. 

“Ah, well, um, nothing,” Tony trails off, sitting back down on his stool heavily. The bot Tony called U tries to push a towel into Tony’s hand, and he takes it, holding it close to his chest. Clint thinks the move is instinctive, and that Tony is worse off than he’s saying. 

“Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. What’s going on?” Clint’s arms cross, defensive. 

“If you insist…” Tony gazes at him with wary eyes, his fingers tapping on the table frenetically. 

“I do.” He steps forward into Tony’s space, and the other man flinches almost imperceptibly, but opens his eyes a little wider when Clint takes a friendly stance with his arms uncrossed and palms open. Body language was something he learned from Coulson, and at least it’s useful for something. 

“Cap moved out. He uh, got tired of me, I guess.” Tony tilts his head and picks at his ragged t-shirt, fiddling with the collar. 

“Who could get tired of you? You’re like a walking entertainment center. Steve is like… a soggy chicken nugget.” Yeah, Cap is good at his job. But he’s good at his job like Coulson was, like he has nothing else. It chills him momentarily to think Clint had been second priority. He’d known that going in, but it stings, because Clint gets it. He really gets that Cap owes Tony just a bit better. It’s not like Cap is a handler. He’s a fighter, a tactician. There’s always time for tact when you’re working with people. Coulson taught him that. Cap has a ways to go as a leader. 

“A soggy chicken nugget?” 

Clint shrugs. 

“Disappointing and unsatisfying. The guy still unironically believes in the American dream. Gross.” Tony has always been responsive to levity, and Clint is always one second away from poking quiet fun at something. It’s in his nature to push back, rebel. He thinks maybe it’s in Tony’s too. 

“Ok, well, now I want chicken nuggets. Not soggy. Lunch?” Tony has that fake smile pasted on his face, but Clint will take it. He knows all about trying to hide, and he’s not about to expose Tony. 

“Diner across the street?”

“You read my mind.” 

\-- Clint --

“You know you can come to my lab any time. Don’t think I haven’t seen Nat chasing you around the entire tower.” 

Clint didn’t know it had been so obvious, yet he’s relieved and thankful that Tony has decided to phrase it how he is. Clint knows he’s running and hiding like a child from her, but he doesn’t need that thrown in his face by anyone else.

“Thanks. I think I’ll take you up on that. It’s been the first day since— since Coulson that I haven’t felt like the walls are closing in on me.” 

“He was your handler?” Tony’s eyes flick over his cup of coffee at Clint in inquiry. 

“He was more than that.” Clint coughs, and digs into his fries just to give his hands and mouth something to do. 

“Yeah. You know, my dad always expected me to live up to Captain America. But it turns out Steve hates me so much, he’d rather live at SHIELD than with me.” 

“Guy’s a stubborn dickhole. Don’t let him get to you.” Clint respects Captain America, but man does that guy sure have it out for Tony during missions. 

“Yet… He does.” 

“Listen, I get that you want him to respect you, but Cap’s one of those guys who can’t see that people who aren’t soldiers or agents can have a place on the field. It’s not you.” 

“But it feels like me.” Quieter Tony adds. “He respected Howard.” 

“And where was Howard? On the field? Nope. I heard Cap yelling at you a couple times. I just thought he’d get over it, pull that stick right out of his ass and move on. But apparently not. Don’t listen to the guy. The team needs you.” Clint isn’t really sure why Tony cares. There’s nothing Tony can do about Cap’s attitude, and it is quite the fucking attitude. 

Steve is a good leader and for the most part, his direction on the battlefield is well-honed, if not, flawless. But his people management skills are lacking. Clint knows how to fly under the radar, how to take the pieces of himself that would get him in trouble and hide them. But he doesn’t understand Tony. Why Tony cares. 

After lunch they part ways as Clint sidesteps the living area in favor of his room. 

He can’t stop thinking about Coulson. It’s not like Tony himself reminded him of Coulson, but there’s something about the situation he can’t quite put his finger on. 

The mumbled way that Tony had said that Cap respected Howard turns over in his mind, the way Tony had said it had sounded like an admission or confession, yet it had smacked of defeat somehow. 

Clint has never been able to escape the hype of Cap either. Not with Coulson around. Clint had probably heard enough about Captain America to fill one of those awful biographies that had been all the rage in the 50s and 60s, and he knew enough about Cap’s supposed relationship with Howard to make a few educated leaps. 

Though history called them great friends, they had never actually spent that much time together. Howard had been there for Project Rebirth and he’d had a hand in making Cap’s original gear, but that wouldn’t have required him to actually spend time with the other man. If that was the case then it was possible that Steve’s impression of Howard was built on nothing but his reputation within the army, and that had been steeped in so much bullshit, political ego stroking to ensure that Stark would continue making them weapons and other gear for the war. 

Clint knew the looks that Tony wore. Knew the deep sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that screamed at him that he wasn't good enough. Clint snarked and sassed and strode around with false bravado, a cocky smirk splitting his face. That wasn’t so different to how Tony hid behind his glasses with the colored lenses or how he performed for the media. 

How much of what anyone saw was really Tony? 

Clint had always seen better from a distance, and time was more distance than he ever needed. Tony needs something from Cap. Something that Clint is certain he is not going to get from him, no matter how hard he tries, and it’s destroying Tony. Clint knows that feeling, dying slowly day by day as every want you have is stripped away one at a time until you’re sure there is going to be nothing left but an empty husk. He knows what it feels like to be on the outside, looking into the window and hoping the things that everyone else gets to have could be yours too. 

He had those things with Coulson. He’s sure. At least, he’s mostly sure. There’s guilt then, that he should feel any doubt. When he was with Coulson, privately, it was everything he could imagine. But as soon as that door opened, the man he knew was still there, but he was devoted to his work. And Clint couldn’t, shouldn’t resent that. 

Clint thinks he doesn’t know how to not be deep with the people he’s with. It’s his fault. He understood every boundary that Coulson had given him for the duration of their relationship. Coulson lived on base; he couldn’t be seen in Clint’s room. Agents were gossipy things, and Coulson had a responsibility to the Avengers and SHIELD to not be involved in drama. That was the same reason they never met in Coulson’s room either. The office suited just fine. 

There were no lunches, no dinners, except when he was handling both Natasha and Clint. It wasn’t like Coulson was careful to never be alone with Clint, but it was calculated. And Clint almost never called him Phil. Didn’t want to mess up and reveal anything. 

Maybe—maybe he never had what he thought. Cap was a good deal more brash and not as succinct, but the point was the same. Coulson never wanted Clint doing anything out of the ordinary to draw attention. And Clint… well, he wasn’t ok anymore with the limited amount of things he got to experience with the man before he died. The memories he has are dimmed by all the times he’s been turned away. No dates or public affection. No personal information about Coulson’s parents, or where he grew up yet Coulson had known _everything_ about Clint. 

Anything that hadn’t been in Clint’s file when he came to SHIELD he had told Coulson about. He had dripped bits of information to him over months and years as he grew more comfortable with Coulson. Clint had cried on the man’s shoulder as he recounted, in excruciating detail, how Barney had left him to die. He had tucked his head against Coulson’s chest as he told him about his parents and life before the circus. Clint had laid every single humiliating moment at Coulson’s feet whilst he got nothing in return, and he hadn’t even seen it. 

How much did he even really know his late lover at all? Fuck. He can’t help but understand Tony’s position, because he’s coming to realize he never would have had what he wanted, needed with Coulson. Ever. They were never going to come out as a couple. And somewhere inside Clint, he’d always assumed that there was an endgame where they’d be free of these restrictions. 

But what if Coulson never thought of them as restrictions in the first place? If that was all there is.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s like now that the Captain is gone, Tony can breathe again. He can _think_ without repercussions. Something about Rogers had filled up all the space there was, sucked in all the air, and left Tony feeling out of breath, dizzy with confusion. 

After his talk with Clint, it’s not as confusing anymore. There’s a certain clarity that’s come from losing Rogers that imbues him with inner knowledge. This all goes back to Howard, as everything wrong in Tony’s life seems to. Without Howard, there would have been no Obie. Without Howard, there would have been no Captain America. Without Howard, there would have been no broken and shattered pieces of Tony that kept on living despite their circumstances. 

Rogers is yet one more thing that he wanted from Howard. You’d think, if you asked anyone else, that Howard _had_ given Rogers to Tony; Tony went to bed with a stuffed Captain America, posters on his wall, stories from the war filling his head. The only thing Howard ever truly enjoyed talking about with his son. It took so long to realize that his father was never really sharing Rogers with anyone. Tony happened to be there to hear Howard’s devotion but that devotion was too suffocating for more than one man to live in it. It didn’t endear Tony to his father, whatsoever. 

Yet, it still took so long to see that. Years of listening attentively about the one man who was so morally upstanding, so inherently good, he gave his life so that so many millions of others could live. There was no world in which Tony could ever compete, and he didn’t exactly want to as a boy. He just wanted a tiny slice, a little bit of that love for himself. 

It was always too much to ask. 

When Rogers showed up, he lived in this state of cognitive dissonance. He wanted Cap to like him. Badly. It squeezed at his heart and made his ribs ache with tension. But then the fear came in and smothered what desire he had to make things work with Rogers. He would offer an olive branch. He’d be himself. And then he’d make sure that Captain America knew that Tony Stark wasn’t Howard Stark. 

It could have been okay. Maybe things wouldn’t have gone awry in some other situation where the fate of the world wasn’t on the line and they hadn’t been influenced by the scepter. But this is the world they had to live in, and inside of it one Steve Rogers really had it out for one Tony Stark. 

He realized in a quick and harsh fall to the bottom of his own heart, that somewhere inside, he had wanted something more that he’d been incapable of telling the truth to himself about. Maybe he thought Cap would just _like_ him like normal, that there wouldn’t be anything more between them but them. The reality is, he wanted what he’d never gotten from Howard: acceptance, approval, and at least some convoluted form of fondness. 

What he got was a thoroughly constipated man who was lost in his own way, and no matter what Tony did, they were like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together. The dust-up and inevitable noise from their fights filled the Tower, leaving a miasmic tension everywhere. Yet somehow he still had hoped. 

Tony thought he understood what it meant to be so crushed that you lose sight of something. He really had. But this was like being deflated, robbed of the belief that things would ever be ok. It felt like feathers floating towards the wet ground, delicate and breakable thoughts that crashed unforgiving into the destructive earth below. 

Steve left. He left him. Like Howard had always left. And in the ways he’d never come to accept Howard’s leaving, some part of him had been able to accept Steve’s. Was this what growing up felt like? Tony wasn’t a fool; he understood that wanting something from someone who was incapable of giving it to you was a fruitless endeavor. 

What rankled more, is that this is personal. Howard was a man who didn’t know how to be a father. Tony can understand the why of it, even if the how of Howard still made him shudder in the night and wrap himself in as much armor as he could find while he was awake. Howard’s hate started as impersonal, and maybe as time wore on and Tony was better at designing weapons and whatnot than Howard, maybe that hatred had turned a little personal. But even still, Tony understood it. How a child could eat away at your life until you were a has-been, until all of what you had once been was left behind in the wake of your child’s rising star. There was a reason he was childless at his age. He didn’t know if he had it in him to carve off a piece of himself and give it to another human. 

And he certainly wasn’t going to do that for Steve. Not anymore. Not especially when Cap had no real reason to be so upset with Tony. Maybe it was the future that got under Rogers’ skin, but that wasn’t Tony’s problem or fault. Maybe Tony represented the future, but doubly so was he not responsible for that. It was so impersonal, it was personal on the part of Steve’s… hatred. 

Tony had no other words for it. 

Nonetheless, he wants to drown it all out. Bury it under a mountain of work and new gadgets. But like a dopamine starved mouse, he’s pressed that button one too many times. He’s no longer getting the hit he needs from sleep and food deprivation as he undertakes the nebulous task of changing the world.

So he’s raising the bottle to his lips, saluting a haphazard piece of a new uniform for the Captain that lays haphazardly over a desk, star peeking out from underneath the blue. 

_Down the hatch you go, feelings._

And they do. Again and again, wrapped up in sips and gulps of smoky amber. The peat moss flavor becomes the loam he wishes he’d sink into and never rise from. The oak is what his life smells like as it’s burning. The sharp bite of alcohol is insufficient penance for the things he’s done, for who he is. 

He’s alone for hours, each pass at his cup the only thing keeping him anchored to awareness. Dum-E and U hover around with rags and various objects that might help or cheer him up, but it’s like a veil has come between himself and the things he’s created. And they are things, because if they weren’t, then why does he feel so alone? 

Everyone he knows, he drives away. His own father, Pepper, even Rhodey, and of course Steve Rogers, the living embodiment of parental abandonment. He thought he’d gotten over this, and away from it long ago, but the more he drinks, the more he realizes he never changes. Nothing is ever different. It’s only one veneer after another of the same shit life, with the same types of people who never respect or care for him. He’s not even respectable. He gets that. He just wanted Rogers’ friendship, truly. But that’s a distant memory now. 

He stands up and in one brisk movement topples everything off the table of his main workstation. None of it matters anyway. There are no families for alcoholic, selfish, narcissistic, self-indulgent men. Nothing he does _matters_. 

When he takes up the mallet and smashes it down on a piece of armor that he’d begun to shape out, it skids away from the blow, gold-metal alloy far more resilient than a stupid hammer. He knows this, but he chases after it as it skitters away, smashing it from right to left into walls. It’s kind of ridiculous. 

Which is how Clint finds him, chasing after a piece of his own armor in a drunken game of whack-a-mole, gauntlet wrapped around one hand, the high-pitched hum giving a warning to that fricking shit piece of armor that it’s going to _break_ , he swears to god. 

“Well not that this doesn’t look fun, but it seems like a one-man game.” Clint leisurely strolls up to the offending piece of metal, and kicks it. Tony treats it like a clay pigeon being tossed in the air and promptly shoots it. It melts a hole in the floor, but by god does it also put one through the plate. Finally. 

“Got any better ideas?” Tony knows how he must look. Broken, defeated. He’s disgusting, covered in grease and alcohol sweat, his clothes hanging limply off his body. There’s a momentary thrill as Clint eyes Tony up, and Tony sees in the other man’s eyes his own vulnerability reflected back. 

_What are you going to do about it?_ His mind taunts Clint, the words stuck inside his throat. He wants to goad the other man, make him become part of this, or just _leave_ like everyone else does. 

“Gimme that. I’m staying.” Clint snatches a half-full bottle off the table, and takes a wet swig from it, answering the question Tony can never, ever ask. Clint is going to stay. He’s going to _stay_

“You’re going to need more than half a bottle to catch up with me, Legolas.” Tony barks out a chuckle, saluting Clint with the bottle he’s snatched away from him. 

“Good thing I know where you hide everything.” Tony’s jaw drops as Clint bends over and flings a few components to the side to uncover another bottle, this time whiskey, hidden behind all of the detritus. That’s _his_ god damn hiding place for when he gets frustrated working on a problem and only whiskey will do to start his engines again. Unbelievable. He can’t possibly know Tony’s place for the rum of celebration, at least. 

“You suck, and I hate you.” 

“You don’t hate me, but I do _suck_.” Clint takes a lascivious chug out of the bottle once more, coy eyes on Tony. And how about that. Tony watches as Clint pops off the bottle with a smack of his wet lips, and looks even harder as Clint licks them clean. Not once does the other man stop looking at Tony. He can feel the smouldering heat from here. 

“You know who really sucks? I mean not in the fun way, but sucks like, balls. And not in the fun way either. But fucking Coulson. You know? Who just ups and dies like that? Approaching a god who is so many times more powerful than you with a weapon you don’t know anything about. It’s the kind of thing he told me never to do. Then he goes and does that. That’s what’s the sucketh.” 

“People are rude.” Tony shrugs, taking another sip, still unable to take his own eyes off Clint. They’re not circling each other physically, but Tony feels like he’s playing some kind of dangerous game between them. 

“Mm. Not Coulson. He was im-pec-able. At all times.” Clint pulls away from the bottle and sloshes it suggestively before bringing his hand down to his side, fingers barely holding onto the neck of the glass. Tony very much hopes that Clint isn’t going to commit alcohol abuse and drop it. 

“Agent always struck me as the kind of guy who irons his underwear, that true?” 

Clint shrugs at him. 

“Wouldn’t know.”

“But I thought—well, uh—”

“I thought too, you know. Once. Maybe twice. Total mistake.” 

“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Tony’s voice is a murmur as he clutches the bottle to his chest. He doesn’t know who he’s telling at this point. And he isn’t sure why he’s lying. Because he knows about mistakes. 

Clint strides up to him, and tilts his head as they’re almost chest to chest. His eyes rove over Tony, taking him in, devouring whatever is left of Tony after everything he’s lost. Every time Tony thinks there’s nothing left, someone else comes in to take the rest, until another comes and does the same.

He doesn’t know why he hopes anymore. 

“I never actually got to see inside his super-secret private room.” Clint’s smile is small and vicious, his eyelashes fluttering as he blinks. When Clint takes another chug off the bottle, Tony sucks in a breath through his nose. Guess he’s not the only one who knows what it feels like to be locked out. 

“So your place was the bang box.” They’re still so close, and Clint has started rocking back and forth, from foot to foot. 

Clint barks out a laugh. “No.” 

Tony mirrors Clint’s earlier pose, his head cocked to the side in question. His own agony reaches for Clint’s, and his hand twitches as he restrains himself from touching Clint in commiseration. Tony knows, knows deeply what this is like. 

“Don’t you know that it’s _unprofessional_ to be seen with your handler in the dorms?” Clint gestures at Tony with the bottle to emphasize his point. On the man’s face, Tony can see the lines of tension that mar his skin.

“Yet you aren’t denying that you and Agent were a _thing_?” 

Clint brushes past Tony and leans over the empty workspace, all but slamming the bottle on the counter. He looks down for a moment before bringing the bottle to his lips again. It’s almost empty, and he leaves it there as he meanders over to Tony’s cars. Despite how messy the workshop can get, Tony puts his tools back where they belong, and where the car tools belong is one of those large metal filing cabinet style monstrosities that you can find at the hardware store. Clint bangs the bottom drawer open and pulls out the celebration rum. That _fucker_. 

“ _Thing_ is probably the right word for it,” Clint admits, his voice low. He strides back over to the worktable, where Tony has also come to stand near, and faces Tony, one hand on the table and the other clutching the rum to his chest. Something is stirring between them, and Tony’s longing sits on tenterhooks. 

“I figured you were like, a couple or whatever.” He’s really not sure why he’s pushing, but he can’t help it. He’s never been able to help it. 

“Year and a few months and I still have no idea what the fuck we were.” Clint’s smile looks lost on his face. 

“At least tell me the sex was good?” His voice comes out softer than intended, and he takes a drink to hide his own real curiosity. Why he wants to know about Clint’s sex life is beyond him. But there is something excruciatingly sad about what Clint is describing. It’s not quite the same, but the longing for something, anything, from someone you respect or love is a thing he understands well.

Tony watches as Clint’s tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip before a smirk takes over his face as he moves into Tony’s personal space. Tony pivots to the side, letting Clint press the small of his back into the worktable behind him while Clint places his hands on the metal surface on either side of Tony, bracketing him in. The heat and alcohol is an aura about them, and Tony breathes it in. 

“Well, I had no complaints when I was bent over his desk.”

It can’t be longer than a second or two that Clint keeps him there, pinned without a single touch. 

“Speaking of banging.” Clint's eyes rake over Tony’s body. “Let’s go blow some shit up.” 

Suddenly he’s gone, backing away and stalking towards the door to the workshop. 

Tony follows; he can’t help himself. Clint spins on his heels before leaving, facing Tony, who has jerked to a halt. 

“Do you have a potato gun? Or something like that. Maybe for larger fruits? They delivered some watermelon in our groceries. I hate watermelon.” 

Tony grins, lips curling up over his teeth. 

“I can make something. Give me ten minutes.” 

“Fire in the hole!” The errant fruit zips through the open air on top of the tower as Clint raises his bow high and releases. It explodes in a splatter of wet, pink gobs, spraying them in detritus. 

They’re disgusting at this point. Covered in sickly sweet bits of apple, pear, melon, and more. Tony does happen to like watermelon, and he’s got a piece in one hand, scotch in the other. It’s a disgusting combination and he is here for it. 

“How many more?” There’s chunks of apple on Clint’s shoulders, and Tony walks over to pick them off, bit by bit. Clint’s armor is filthy with juice, and they both stink of saccharine. For a moment, Clint lets him snag pieces off of him, but then he grabs Tony’s hand and eats a chunk of pear out from between his fingers, tongue pushed forward to guard his teeth against Tony’s hand. It’s warm, sudden, and all too _close_. But he’s imagining things. It’s normal. They’re having a good time. 

Clint reaches over and flicks a piece of fruit into Tony’s face. It smacks his cheek and he waves his hands at Clint to stop the archer from continuing his assault. But Clint snags his wrists and pulls them up, before he grabs a piece of fruit off Tony’s chest and mashes it to his face. Tony sputters and blows an exaggerated raspberry at Clint.

“Gross!” Tony leans in, pulling his hand up to his mouth as he hunches closer to Clint to try and protect his front. Clint keeps reaching, trying to pick slices of fruit off of him for further attacks.

“Gross? You’re the—you’re the one shoving things in my mouth.” He’s laughing hard enough to stutter as he dodges left and right. 

“Well, you hardly ever eat. Someone has to do it.” Clint gets another one, this time a hard chunk of pineapple that he grinds onto Tony’s lips with his open-faced palm. Tony opens up his mouth and licks a broad, wet stripe up Clint’s hand. In retaliation, Clint wipes it on Tony’s face. 

“Fucker.” Tony’s voice is soft, but he feels heated with excitement. This is the most fun he’s had in however long. He can’t count the days or weeks. 

“You wish.” The wink that Clint gives him is salacious, which it shouldn’t be, because the man is covered in gunk. 

“You should shower before you start attracting flies.” 

“Maybe I will. Then I’m going to eat something.” The bottom of Tony’s stomach drops out. Clint is leaving. He snatches the half-empty wine bottle from one of the patio tables where he’s set it down and takes a healthy swig from it as he watches Clint dust more pieces from his uniform. That’s ok. It’ll be ok. He has stuff to do in the workshop, doesn’t he? 

And this was fun. But fun doesn’t last, and people don’t stick around for the rest, and Tony has to be ok with that. 

There must be a certain expression on his face, because Clint stops and gives him a measured glance that’s indecipherable to Tony before he turns around and stalks towards the entry way back into the Tower. 

“Oh!” Clint whips around and stalks back up to Tony, snatching the wine from his hand. “I need this, for making pasta. You’ll be up in ten?” And Clint doesn’t wait for a response before he cocks his head and leans forward, biting another piece of fruit that was hanging off Tony’s shirt. _With his mouth._ It’s abrupt and Tony doesn’t move a muscle as it happens. Everything has just flipped on its head. Clint’s mouth was _on his chest_. 

And his wine is gone. And so is Clint. 

Tony’s left staring at the empty space and a whole fuck ton of shattered fruit that’s littering the balcony. He can feel his own jaw slack on his face, and he closes it before following Clint inside. 

One shower later, and he’s tentatively making his way to his kitchen, not quite believing that there’s going to be dinner, and that Clint is in his Penthouse. Usually, they’re in the communal kitchen, but JARVIS had faithfully given Clint’s location, and Tony feels a little thrill that Clint is here in his space. 

He’s a languid kind of drunk, just teetering on not being able to function as well, and he kind of wants to tip over into the territory of feeling devoid of his emotions. Despite the fun they’ve had, it’s been a rough day. He’s not done feeling sorry for himself. 

Carb loading seems like an appropriate thing to do in this case. 

Clint is at the stove, pouring the wine into a hot pan before taking a swig and setting the rest of the bottle down. 

“You know, I never knew that you knew how to cook.” Tony sidles up next to him, snatching the wine like the security blanket that it is. Clint reaches around and grasps the bottle over his hand, sliding it down so he can yank it away and put it back on the counter. Damn him.

“I just like to let Banner take care of it usually. His curries are to die for. Also, I need that.” Clint dumps the rest of the wine, not letting his eyes leave Tony’s as he pours. There goes Tony’s easy access. Someone has to have left a bottle of something out here. He’s usually a better planner than this, but he has been drinking a lot lately. 

Well, there is the Midori. It’s something Pepper uses occasionally to make shots, but they’ve never had it without rum. It’s disgusting otherwise.

He goes for it, figuring it can’t be that bad. It’s in the cabinet above the fridge, and he can just barely reach it. But as soon as his fingers wrap around the bottle, Clint is there grabbing it away from him. 

“Hey! You can’t possibly put that in the pasta! What’s the deal?” He can feel his face reddening with anger, his limbs going tight with distaste. Clint is just _smiling_ , like a fucking asshole. 

“You’ll want to have taste buds for this pasta. I promise it’s worth it.” 

Grinding his teeth, he wheedles out a response. 

“Midori is like twenty percent alcohol. I think I’ll be fine.” How dare Clint cut him off from his drink? Doesn’t he know what a shit week it’s been? 

“For me? Just wait until after dinner for me?” There’s something about the easy way he says it that makes Tony pause. Pepper has tried to get him to stop before. As has Rhodey. But underneath their concern has always been this desperation. Clint doesn’t seem like he cares about the drinking per se. He just wants Tony to be present. And Tony… Well, he wants to. He wants to eat with Clint and maybe pretend for a moment that he’s with a close friend who cares about him and wants to spend time with _Tony_. 

So he decides to let it happen. 

The moment he gives in, Clint gives him the biggest shit-eating grin that should piss him off, but instead, it’s endearing. Clint sets the bottle down and reaches out to grip his arm, and the touch is electric, the fingertips indenting his skin. There’s a moment where he thinks that Clint is going to pull him closer, but it breaks like the tide and Clint drops his hand away. The smile is still there though, with an undercurrent of gentleness that doesn’t come off as condescending. 

“Why don't you grab the plates, this is almost ready to go.” 

Tony shakes his head and complies. Would that his childhood had this. Laying the table is something he’s only seen on tv, and he’s surprised at how much he wants to do it. How he has always wanted to feel like he’s contributing to a family, to a home. 

“Napkins?” Clint suggests. 

“Yeah, I’ll grab them.” He finds them in a random cabinet and tucks them under the silverware. A warm feeling overtakes him at the way the island looks. All that’s left is to get something to drink, and he decides to fill up some water glasses, not knowing what else to grab. As he brings them back to the table, Clint has the pan in hand and is serving up the pasta to their plates. One place setting is at the end of the island, and Tony realizes he’s set the other next to it on the bar, not quite facing each other, but close enough. He hopes that’s ok. 

Soon, they’re seated, and Tony’s knees bump into Clint’s gently, and it’s just as potent as the other man’s hand on his arm. He pulls back gently, not wanting to alert Clint as to how much it’s affected him. To which Clint takes his feet and places them on the bar of Tony’s chair as if he doesn’t notice how he’s in Tony’s space. 

Or maybe he does. He’s never realized how free and loose Clint can be with his affections. It’s attractive. It’s not something he deserves. 

Clint doesn’t wait for Tony to pick up his fork before he is shoveling a bite into his own mouth, moaning obscenely around it. Tony watches his lips curl around the fork and how they wrinkle as he pulls it out of his mouth. Clint looks fresh and clean, his hair still slightly damp from the shower and his skin clear in the way it can only be after a wash. He looks open, attainable, even though Tony knows that it’s not for him. 

“Fuck, I’m good!” Clint grins at Tony then gestures to Tony’s plate with his now empty fork. “Dig in.” 

Tony does, and thinks about how wonderful the day has been comparatively. How happy he is in this moment. He wishes it could always be like this, and he wishes that this wasn’t just a snapshot in time with Clint. Because he could do this every day: eat food with someone who he’s just had the best time with, and maybe not drink so much. 

He’s not even mad about the drinking, because as he takes his first bite, he too moans around his fork. 

“I’m good. Tell me I’m good.” Clint pokes at his arm with the fork. 

“Yeah, yeah you’re the best.”


	3. Chapter 3

It starts with a few arrows here and there that do funny things, useful things. Several explode. Some are so strong they crack concrete when used. Others melt things with acid. One is a god damn boomerang, which he adores and can see so many uses for. 

They spend a lot of time together in the shop, Clint perched on the ceiling beams as Tony hums and mutters his way through SI work, Avenger’s projects, and general upkeep of the suit. It’s peaceful in a way Clint hasn’t found anywhere else. Tony is a whirl of emotion, and he finds it soothing to his own melancholy. 

Because the mask Clint usually wears has become something real as he’s interacting with the other man. He’s something like _happy_. For moments in time, he can forget about Coulson, and how lonely he was in a relationship with the man. He’s reconciled himself to the fact that what he had with Coulson was not exactly what he thought, and that maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with him, because everything feels right with Tony. 

It’s not helping matters that Tony is so vibrantly appealing. His amber eyes flash at every activity they get up to together. Nothing compares to the day where they launched fruits off the balcony, but they’ve also enjoyed minor food fights, pizza night, Mario Kart, and all sorts of activities that Clint has always found easy-going, but not as meaningful as they seem to be with Tony now. Tony gives his all when they play. He looks like he wants something out of each situation, and Clint so wants to give it to him. 

Which is why when Tony asks him if he wants to go to a gala, Clint doesn’t even hesitate. Tony in a suit has taken on a new meaning. Before he just looked like any fashionable man, but now the fine lines of his tailored clothing accentuate every aspect of Tony. 

“You don’t have to get anything special for it. Just showing up is enough.”

“Nah, I’ll do you proud. I’m getting a suit, just watch me.” 

“For real, Barton, there’s no need.” 

“For real, Tony, call me Clint, and yeah, there is.” Clint thinks he can see Tony gulp in response, the man’s throat moving up and then down. He wonders how Tony feels about him, about all this. It’s like the world has opened up for Clint, and there’s this possibility staring him in the face. Generous Tony. Kind and sweet Tony, who others don’t really see as well as Clint sees now. 

Yes, he’s a disaster. Yes, he’s difficult to take care of at the best of times, but there’s nothing like his regard. And Clint has it and has had it focused on him for weeks now. And returning the favor has been a privilege. The food that Clint has made Tony gets eaten without question, and they find themselves working side by side in a multitude of ways, whether it be clean up in the kitchen or Clint helping Tony with something in the workshop. The seamlessness of it astounds him. 

Tony takes care of him, in his way. He’s not ashamed of Clint. He can see when they make eye contact that Tony isn’t looking away, he’s not glossing over Clint. 

And this gala, this event, is proof of all of it. It’s a culmination. 

There’s no shame in what they’re doing. 

Clint breathes deeply. 

“Ok, if you really want to.” Tony’s voice is tentative, as if he can’t believe it. Clint wants to make sure he does know that Clint cares. Clint knows what it’s like to be a secret, and he’ll never make Tony his secret. 

Instinctively, he reaches up to straighten Tony’s collar of his shirt, something he’s been doing more lately. His fingertips brush Tony’s skin and he smiles. 

“I’m totally going to rock some custom designer shit and be the hottest piece of arm candy at that thing.” Because despite all of his thoughts, in the end, he worries this is a transaction. That Tony is doing this because he’s obligated. The more Tony gives, the more Clint feels like he has to give in turn. 

Tony laughs and Clint turns away from him to smile. This is what he can do. What he is good at. He trained for this, to make others at ease with humor and flirting. 

“As long as you don’t leave me for a younger, prettier scientist.” Tony shoots back. 

Clint raises an eyebrow as he looks back over at Tony. 

“What do you take me for?” He’s aghast, gesticulating widely at Tony as he speaks. “I’m not some floozy who’ll drop my pants at the first guy to mention Newton’s Law to me.”

“Never suggested you were. But I know I’m not the prettiest belle at the ball.” Tony is prevaricating, and Clint can’t have that. 

“To me darling, you’re the only one.” Clint swoops down to his knee, dragging Tony’s hand into a mushed kiss with a sly grin on his face. 

Clint can see Tony struggling with the level of sincerity that Clint inadvertently let slip through in his teasing. Tony nods down at himself. 

“Whilst you’re down there.” He says with an exaggerated wink at Clint. Clint laughs it off, but the image stays in his head for longer than a moment. His fingers on Tony’s pants, sliding under the belt and pulling it off, touching the zipper—he stops that train of thought. Tony’s wonderful, but he hasn’t given any indication of wanting that from him. 

He gets up and makes his excuses. He has a suit to get. 

\--

Before the gala, Clint goes to make sure that Tony has eaten something, bringing down a plate of sandwiches. The workshop doors open with a swish and Clint stalks over to where Tony is sitting, well used to the fact that Tony doesn’t even hear the door. He plops the plate down next to Tony before lightly kicking the man’s chair. Tony startles a little, before turning to see the plate and reaching for a sandwich. 

“You’re not my servant, you know.” Tony takes a bite, chewing with his mouth semi-open. Clint thinks it’s endearing. 

“If I didn’t bring it, would you even eat? Besides, the food at galas is always trash.” Clint leans on the table, arms bracketing the plate, forcing Tony to reach around to grab the next sandwich. Clint even cut off the crusts, knowing Tony hates eating them anyway. He wonders how long it’s been since he came to know that about Tony, and he thinks maybe he’s been doing this for weeks now. He finds it soothing, and he goes to grab the dishes that were left over from last time. 

“But it’s not your job. I can survive on coffee alone.” Tony swallows, and Clint watches the line of his throat as he does so. 

“Well, do you think it’s your job to make me things? Because it sounds like the same fucking thing to me.” Clint stacks a plate onto another plate and snatches a few empty coffee mugs by their handles. 

“But I like doing those things for you,” Tony says. 

“Well, I like doing these things for you.” Clint bites back. Tony eyes him up with suspicion. 

“Fine. I suppose you win this round, Barton.” The sandwiches disappear one by one, Tony’s eyes glinting in the bright light of the workshop. When he’s finished, Clint gathers up that plate too, and leaves without a word, planning his outfit for later that night. 

He went to Tony’s tailor, which he knows because he’s observant of the garment bags Tony has brought home before. He’s gone Iron Man red on the tie, a dark grey three-piece suit with a white undershirt. It’s fancier than he’s ever done before, with the tailor having measured every line of his body to make sure it fit. It’s a lot, but Clint feels a sense of pride that he’s doing this for Tony. 

Usually Tony is late to these things, but they’re both ready in record time, their suits complimentary without being ostentatious. Tony has a three piece as well, black with a deep blue tie. The most stunning part of the suits is how well they fit. Like a second skin. 

They trundle themselves into the limo one after another, and then it’s just Clint and Tony staring at each other from across the seats in the limo. There’s champagne and Clint takes some to steel his nerves. 

“Want to blow some shit up later in our fancy outfits?” 

“We can blow things right now, if you want.” Tony tilts his head knowingly. 

Clint sucks on the champagne glass like his life depends on it. Like he can get the idea of Tony in his mouth if he just _fills it with something else_. 

Tony doesn’t look for his reply, because by then the limo has slowed to a stop, the tinted windows not dark enough to hide the milling bodies that are outside along with flashes of the cameras. 

It’s one thing to have planned and imagined being here, but now that he is, Clint is steeling himself to make good on his bargain with Tony. He’s going to show up. He’s going to wear his outfit well, and not embarrass the man. That’s what the agreement here is. 

Tony, brave, sincere Tony, doesn’t ask if he’s ready so much as looks at him with steady eyes until Clint nods. Tony takes that as his signal and opens the door, stepping out with a blinding smile. Clint has a wistful moment where he watches Tony disappear and it feels—it feels so lonely. But as he stares at the space where Tony just was, a hand appears, palm facing up. 

Clint reaches for it before he can second guess and finds himself gently led into the milieu of Tony’s world. It’s so bright, and for a moment he stutters, before catching himself and pasting on a smiling mask that he’s used on missions before. Tony tucks Clint’s arm into the crook of his arm and leads them both forwards. 

He’s grateful for that touch. Not that he hasn’t been on so many missions before, but this has higher stakes than he’s ever felt. There was something easy about those times, as if they didn’t matter. This is a new game in that it’s not a game. This matters. This is for keeps. He owes Tony more than just minimal satisfaction. 

Because Tony has done so much for him. It’s not that Clint feels he can’t repay, but it is the first time he feels that he’s running a losing race. How do you calculate the debt of the way Tony silences his running mind? What do you use to measure a sense of peace? Clint is far from sure, so all he knows is that he must perform to the utmost of his role here. 

The crowd is loud, but Clint can block that out. All he feels now are his thoughts and how it is to be pressed up to Tony’s warm side. 

They’re inside before he realizes, the lights dimming as they enter, and Tony loosens his hold slightly. 

“I’ll go get us drinks?” Clint offers, trying to find a way to be useful. 

“Yeah, I’m going to find Rhodey. He should be in here somewhere.”

Clint nods in acquiescence and threads himself through the crowd, heading straight for the wet bar. He snags the drinks, which are free, doubles for both him and Tony. He figured Tony wanted his neat, whereas Clint is well and pleased with a screwdriver with a twist. He made them give him one of those shitty umbrellas that didn’t belong at events like these. 

It doesn’t take long to find Tony ensconced with Rhodes. The two men are animated, their teeth flashing white under the flashes of photographers who should have likely been left outside. Clint cuts through again and makes his way to Tony’s side where he can hear the both of them laughing about something or other. Something twinges in his gut at the thought, but he’s not sure what precisely is bothering him. 

“Take some notes kids, because this is what money can do for you.” Tony is gesturing at everything before him with disdain, but there’s a keen and sharp smile on his face that Clint knows is real. 

“Yeah, sounds like money has done so much for you Tony.” Rhodes has his own drink, some cola mix, and he’s bent the straw over the side as he clicks his teeth on the glass and takes a swig. 

“Necessary evil. Clint, darling. You remember Rhodey Bear?” 

“Rhodey Bear, good to see you again.” Clint reaches out and snags Rhodes’s extended hand. The man jerks at the address before his smile widens and he gives Clint’s hand a good shake. 

“Nice to see you again, darling.” Rhodes gives as good as he gets, and Clint shouldn’t be surprised. He’s one of Tony’s closest friends. A friend that he’s met before, but now it seems to have taken on a different meaning. Clint means something different in Tony’s life. Maybe Rhodes doesn’t know it yet, or maybe he does. “So, I hear you’ve been feeding our boy here when he doesn’t eat. What’s he paying you?” 

“Sexual favors.” It’s complete deadpan and Tony’s eyes roll back up in his head before he guffaws and curls in on himself with laughter. Rhodes looks at Tony, then at Clint, and back at Tony, not sure yet if it’s a joke. Poor man; Clint has a great poker face. It doesn’t crack one inch. “You owe me at least three solid blow jobs for this gala.” 

“You know I don’t half-ass anything, dearest.” Tony has regained his composure and Rhodes is clutching his drink like a lifeline, still unsure if Clint is joking. Maybe Clint doesn’t _want_ to be joking, but this might be the best he gets for now. 

“I would give you the shovel talk, but I think you could probably bury me with one hand behind your back and no shovel. So. Um. Assume I’ve told you that I’ll kill you if you do anything to him that he doesn’t want.” 

“We’re kidding Rhodey baby. We’re kidding, right? Yes. For sure kidding.” 

Clint quirks his brow at Tony. “If you say so.” 

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m going to go find a less interesting conversation, and like it too.” Rhodes pats Tony on the back and gives him a genuine, open grin. Tony looks pleased as punch, and he turns to Clint as if to say ‘what’s next?’ Clint is drawn in by the expectant look on Tony’s face. He slots his arm in once again and steers Tony to a different clearing where there’s less people. 

It doesn’t help, because in the next minute it turns into something of a free for all for Tony’s time. Bankers, lawyers, investors, and doctors of all varieties accost Tony like a swarm of mosquitos looking for their ounce of blood from Tony. Clint stays with him all through it, glaring hard enough that people only dare risk a few minutes of their time before finding other, better things to do. 

“You’re the best repellant ever. Please come to my board meetings. I want to watch them shit themselves.” Tony leans back, bringing his hand up to his face and whispers behind it.

“Anywhere you need me to be. Should I bring the bow?” Clint is eying the crowd with utter disdain borne of pretending to be a bodyguard on more missions than he can genuinely count. 

“And the knives.” 

“Anything for you, sweet cheeks.” His arm slithers around Tony’s waist, and he’s playing into the joke to hide the fact that he just wants to be touching Tony like that. Clint is always taking too much, and he knows that, but this is fine because it’s layered under what’s socially acceptable. 

Because right now Tony is Clint’s lifeline, he realizes. It should shock him to his core. But it’s like he’s missing Tony while the man is still here, like he is getting something he never knew to want. 

And he knows he can’t repay that. That somehow he should be doing that. 

He sees Tony is almost finished with his drink and he nods his head at it in askance. 

“Soda water with a lime, please.” Clint obliges, happy to have something to provide. He comes back and the crowds have returned to Tony, eager to take advantage of his sole presence. Clint sidles up once more, his glare turned on like a light switch, eradicating the swirls of people who were waiting on the outskirts to talk to Tony. 

_You have to be this brave to ride this ride._ Clint thinks. Anyone who wants to talk to Tony can deal with Clint. 

Before they know it, the gala is winding down, and Clint feels exhaustion creep into his already tense shoulders. He’s done more with less time before, but something about this isn’t just physical. There’s Tony to think about, and that has occupied his mind more than the actual cost of just standing here. He didn’t do enough, he knows. He’s still behind. 

Tony is still next to him, a tight smile plastered on his face. Underneath it Clint sees the exhaustion. He knows what a tired Tony looks like, and this is it. 

“We should go,” Clint says, tugging at Tony’s clothed elbow.  
“You tired?” 

“Yes. Let’s go.” He’s not tired. He once stayed in a tiny hovel of a perch for over 72 hours without sleep or movement. This is nothing compared to that. 

Tony lets Clint pull him gently away from the last of the people he’s talking to. They make it to the doorman who calls their limo for them, and it rolls up faster than expected. There’s no more photographers, all of them disinterested in what people look like after two or three hours of the brutal humidity that is a large crowd of people. 

They pile into the limo, Tony first, and Clint just after him, both of them huddled on the bench seat. Tony slumps into Clint without a word, and nuzzles his head on Clint’s shoulder. He reaches over to pat Tony’s head before shifting and letting his arm come up and around Tony. Grunting with acceptance, Tony’s eyes flutter closed and the man passes out. 

It’s the longest car ride home ever, Clint trying his best not to dislodge a sleeping Tony, even though he thinks he could sing happy birthday and the other man wouldn’t wake up. 

They reach the tower and the limo makes its way into the private garage, safe from prying eyes. Clint makes a judgment call right then and there as he tucks his arm under Tony’s legs and hauls him up in a bridal carry as he carefully slips out of the car. 

“I’m ‘wake.” 

“No, you’re not.” 

“I’m ‘wake!” Tony insists. Clint does not deposit the man on the floor of the elevator but instead continues to hold him. Tony does his worst impression of a light, and goes out. 

They make it to the penthouse and Clint starts to walk towards Tony’s room. 

“You promised. You said we could watch Star Trek!” He does not know why four-year-old voice is doing it for him, but he stops dead in the hall, Tony clutched in his arms. 

“Fine.” He tries to make it sound grumbly, but it comes out as exasperatedly affectionate instead. 

They make their way to the couch, where Clint plops Tony down, legs facing the side so that he can sit with Tony’s head on his lap. His reasons are entirely selfish; he got a taste of what it felt like to touch Tony’s hair in the limo, and he wants more. It’s surprisingly soft for a man Tony’s age. Clint’s hair is rough-hewn. He uses no products and doesn’t do more than shampoo every week or so. 

Clint snatches the remote and tosses on Next Generation. Tony mumbles in gratitude. As the show starts, Clint lets his arm fall on Tony again and places his other hand on Tony’s head. 

It’s soft. So soft.

He can’t stop himself at that point; fingernails digging in, he scratches experimentally at Tony’s head. The moan of pleasure he hears goes straight down his spine. He does it again, just to be sure, and Tony arches his back.

“Holy shit, Legolas. You’ve got magic hands.” 

“Thought you hated magic.” 

“When it’s you? Shit, sugar, you should be Sorcerer Supreme.” 

Clint is left without a comeback because right now he’s got his focus divided into two sections: one, keep making Tony Stark make those sounds, and two, do not, under any circumstances, get a hard-on. 

It works, for the most part, but Tony makes things that much more difficult when he takes the arm he’s laying on and hooks it under Clint’s knee, gripping the leg as if it’s a particularly comfortable pillow. At least Tony’s head is no longer square on his junk now. But still. 

The last thing he remembers is that Tony is leaving a little puddle of drool on his pants, and he thinks that’s quite nice. 

\---

The morning comes with the loud blaring of the fire alarm. He jolts up and looks around wildly. There’s billowing smoke coming from the kitchen, and Clint knows immediately what has happened. He can hear cursing in the kitchen, and while Clint hates how burnt food stinks up the whole house, he can’t help but smile. 

“JARVIS! Turn it off!”

“Sir, the stove is still on fire.” 

“I know! So stop telling me!” 

“Very well, sir.” 

Which is when Clint walks in, grabs the dishtowel off the sink, and tosses it straight over the open flames of the… eggs? He didn’t think you could really light those on fire that easily, but stranger things have happened. 

Tony inches his way back from the stove, very clearly avoiding Clint’s eye by looking down at the floor. Clint considers giving him the business, but he knows somehow, and he can’t explain why, that Tony would be genuinely hurt. After all, he had tried to do something nice for them, and it didn’t turn out. And he remembers what that was like with Phil. 

“It’s ok. We can just try again.” 

“That was all the eggs.” 

“Toast, then?” 

“I used the toaster the other week for parts.” Tony’s cheeks are pinking with more embarrassment. 

“Hmm, well, you know you can toast things in the oven.”

“Do you think I should be allowed near the oven again?” 

“What else am I good for if not making toast?” 

“You make an excellent pillow.” 

“That’s two things then.” 

Clint raids the cabinet, grabs some slices of bread, and puts them in the oven. He grabs the now blackened pan and tosses it in the sink to soak, if it’s even salvageable at this point. 

They sit there then, munching on the bland, dry toast, and Clint thinks it’s the best morning he’s had in a while. He hasn’t woken up from dreaming about Phil or being mind-controlled. There were no dreams at all. He didn’t even think of Phil until he realized he hadn’t thought about him. There’s just Clint, Tony, and the toast. And that’s enough. 

He thinks about the warmth of Tony’s body, how nice it was to just lay like that in the common area. Where anyone could see them. It felt freeing, like he was defying some sacred precept that told him he couldn’t do that. He wonders what Tony thinks about it, and he peers at the other man who is making a right mess of his toast, crumbs everywhere down his shirt as he shovels in bite after bite. It can’t taste as good as Tony is making it look, and he laughs outright as Tony locks eyes with him.

“What?” Tony asks. 

“You.” 

“Me?” 

“Yeah, you.” Tony just gives him a sharp grin, like he knows what he’s up to. Like he knows precisely how adorable he looks at that moment. Clint feels a swell of affection and he feels he can’t stand to even be in the same room with Tony; it’s all too much. 

“Hey, I gotta use the bathroom real quick. Be right back.” 

“Yeah, I’ll wait here, I gotta make coffee.” He rushes off without making it seem like he is. 

Just walking away gives Clint an even better perspective on things. He breathes a sigh of relief that Tony isn’t there to see every single emotion that crosses his face. Because everything is going so well. Too well. Clint is now reeling from the quiet intimacy of their past evening, and he’s on his way back to the kitchen when Tony rushes past. 

“Hey! Had a great time, but, uh, gotta go!” And he’s off again. Clint blinks and looks towards the elevators as they beep. 

It’s Cap.


	4. Chapter 4

Cap shows up on Monday morning, as if it’s time for work. 

“Sir, Captain Rogers has entered the elevator and is headed for the penthouse.” That elevator is fast, but JARVIS knows him and has likely slowed it down at least a little. 

“Shit, J, man the harpoons, sound the bugle for retreat, or whatever!” Tony doesn’t think he has time to snatch his bag of popcorn or a blanket before Rogers and his terrible fashion choices walk through the door, so he doesn’t bother cleaning up the spilled kernels or folding anything before he springs up and makes for the hallway towards his room. 

“May I suggest sir, that you advance in the other direction, towards the workshop.” Damn. His room had felt safe since Cap left, but now Tony has to let that go and hide in his usual spot. A warm, calming feeling hits him that at least he’ll have Clint there. Clint, who held him so close last night, and even in that morning of awkward and sore limbs from sleeping on the couch, was solicitous to Tony. 

“Oh, ok, yeah, you’re right. On it.” Tony dives off the other direction, jogging past the elevator before almost running bodily into Clint.

“Watch out. The warden’s back! Hide anything remotely fun or he’ll have an aneurysm.” Tony says over his shoulder as he starts down the stairs. Clint’s bark of laughter echoes around the stairwell. 

Once he makes it to the lab he leans against the workbench and lets out a long breath. Cap hadn’t called. He had sent no word at all that he was going to be coming back to the tower. He had just shown up probably without any thought into how it would affect anyone. Well fuck, Cap. Tony was not going to think about him. He wasn’t going to give in to the niggling thoughts in the back of his head that told him to check the footage of his arrival or current location. 

With less struggle than he thought it would take, he let it go, forcing his mind to leave behind the questions that popped into being with Cap’s arrival and instead turn to other matters that needed his attention. 

What he and Clint had shared last night at the gala and after.

He can still feel Clint’s compact and muscular body wrapped around his, their faces so very close, with their breath hot on each other’s mouths. They hadn’t touched, but the air was so thick between them, it almost didn't matter. 

There was something there in the morning, and at night. 

Something that’s been brewing since Clint first came to the workshop looking for solace. 

Tony feels at peace with Clint. No pretensions or need to impress the man. They’ve had their misunderstandings, worked out that Clint doesn’t need Tony for his gifts or money, and vice versa. And now that all these ugly veils have been lifted, Tony can see how much Clint is such a steady, calm presence, but underneath the stillness of his blue, so very blue, eyes, there’s a pool of longing and need that Tony can see himself reflected back inside. 

Somehow, he feels safe to want that with Clint. 

Almost as if thinking about it might break it, Tony decides that he ought to focus on other projects. Good things have always been fragile for Tony. They don’t happen, and if they do, they end up ruined. 

So Tony decides he’s not going to let Cap wreck what he’s begun with Clint. He’ll make Cap a new suit. Maybe something as a backup, with more utility pockets. Or something more subdued for night missions. Tony thinks that Cap would look amazing in an all-black suit with a big stripe of flesh going from his pectorals to his belly, but Rogers would never wear something so scandalous. 

Before he knows it, it’s been several hours, and he’s got an almost finished shirt and pants with Cap’s exact measurements. He knows, he asked JARVIS to remeasure the man when he walked in. Every so often he’s checked in to make sure that Cap hasn’t wandered too far. Noticing how Cap is already set up back into his room again, the duffel bag unpacked. 

He figures that now is the time to approach, and he carries the dark grey uniform to the elevator and up to the main living space. Clint and Steve are on the couch there, watching some day time trash tv of some sort, and while Tony has no real fear of Rogers, he prefers a public approach to his apology. 

“Heya Cap! I made something for you, by way of an apology.” Steve’s head swings around and his face is momentarily open until it shadows over with consternation. The man gets up and walks around the couch, not quite close to Tony. His arms are crossed, which is a bad sign. 

“I don’t need anything, Stark.” Tony does his best not to gulp, made much easier by the fact that Clint also gets up and comes to stand beside Tony. 

“Uh, I figured this counted as a fix for any issues with night missions but—uh. Um, I know, I know you don’t technically _need_ it, but I made it for you and it has—” 

“Would you just stop?!” Steve says, pushing himself to stand a couple of feet in front of Tony, hands roughly twining through his own hair. Tony furrows his brow as he looks up at Steve. 

“Stop?” Tony asks. “Stop what?” 

“Stop trying to buy people’s friendship. How many variations of my suit have you made? How many times have you given Nat new widow’s bites or forced new phones and tablets on us all?” Steve says, one hand resting on his hip. “How many new bows and trick arrows have you made Clint?” As he says the archer's name he gestures with his free hand at the man standing next to Tony. 

Clint’s arm shoots out in front of Tony, palm facing Tony’s chest but not making contact as he steps forward. 

“What Tony does or doesn’t do for me or anyone else is none of your fucking business Cap.” Clint’s voice is low, like somehow the words are a threat. “The proper thing to do when someone gives you a gift is to say thank you.”

Tony reaches out and pushes at Clint’s arm which is still extended in front of him. 

“Hey, it’s fine. You don't need to defend me,” Tony says, giving Clint a worried look. 

Clint flicks his eyes over to meet Tony’s for a second, he lets out a derisive noise through his nose and lets Tony lower his arm. 

“Well you’re not going to fucking defend yourself to him, are you?” Clint asks, mirroring Steve by placing a hand on his own hip for a second before letting his arm fall back to his side. “I don’t give a shit what he says, that isn’t you. So what if you like to give people things or make them stuff that you know they’ll like? It isn’t hurting anybody and it’s no fucking different than me making sure you eat on the regular. Friends do that kind of shit for each other and if Captain Asshole actually had any real friends he would know that.” Clint finishes his tirade by switching his attention from Tony to Steve, his eyebrows raising in what Tony can only describe as a challenge. 

Steve says nothing, looking between the two men in front of him with a slight scowl marring his features. Tony waits a few seconds watching Steve, then shakes his head and spins on his heel to hurry out of the room. 

Tony comes to a stop after rounding the corner, leans against the wall, and pulls his phone from his pocket. He can still hear Clint hissing something at Steve, too quiet to understand the words, but the tone of it is sharp and full of reprimand. 

“Pull up the feed for cam forty-seven J,” Tony orders, watching the scene he had just left continue on the small phone screen. 

Clint seems to have given up all pretense of getting on Steve’s good side, and he moves closer to him with a finger pointing accusingly at Steve’s chest. 

“No, you don’t fucking get it.” Clint says, his voice muffled like he is talking through gritted teeth. “Howard spent every fucking day of Tony’s childhood talking you up, making it seem like you were the epitome of everything that Tony should be and yet wasn’t. He had fucking years of hero worship and admiration pushed into him so forcefully that he spent his whole life measuring himself against unmitigated propaganda designed to sell bonds and convince boys to keep signing up to die.” 

Tony can’t breathe, his chest hitching as if trying to take in air but nothing follows. Clint doesn’t stop talking. 

“You don’t get to waltz back in here after fucking off for a month with no explanation or word on when you’d be back and keep treating him like you have been.” 

Steve lifts his hands from his hips and instead crosses his arms across his chest, looking down at Clint in front of him. 

“And you don’t get to tell me what the hell I can or can’t do, Barton.” Tony watches Clint step into Steve’s space like it’s nothing, then. Like Cap isn’t Captain America at all, but some pissant SHIELD operative that Clint is schooling. 

“And you don't get to fucking bully your way into getting what you want just because you know Tony won’t stop you.”

“I’m not—”

“What? A bully? I would reevaluate your fucking self-image Cap, because from where I’m standing you’re one ungrateful, cruel prick. Tony does everything for you. Pays the rent, gives you the latest equipment for free, pays you, provides you free food, and you can’t be bothered with seeing what’s right in front of you. Too busy getting hostile with your teammate instead of using your words like a good little soldier.”

“I—” Cap looks stricken, and Tony thinks that he doesn’t really do that much. It’s just money to him, just materials. He’s obviously missed some key things along the way to making and keeping friends. Clint doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it is nice to be defended. He’s never had that happen before. 

“No, I don’t think I want to hear anymore. Please excuse me for not having the time to listen to you go on about your exhaustingly rigid moral compass. I’m going to find Tony and make sure he isn’t self-destructing in his workshop over this. Because giving a shit about what you say? Well, that should be low on his priority list. So respectfully Captain, fuck you.” Shit. Tony bolts towards the workshop, closing the app on his phone. 

He skids in and settles into a chair just as the door to the lab opens and Clint strolls through. 

“You and me, we’re going to have a talk.” Wide-eyed, Tony tries to maintain his cool. He can’t think what Clint would want now, and he doesn’t have any time to prepare anything. “Don’t you let that man talk down at you. You are a good person, and a meaningful teammate. You— you mean something to me.” Clint pauses as Tony draws in a taut breath at the admission. 

They’ve been dancing around each other, haven’t they? An easy comradery that had been built on loneliness and a need for some kind of social interaction that had nothing to do with their pasts, but it had morphed into something else. Overt flirting was built into both of their natures, a smoke screen to keep others at a distance that had seemed to completely fail when it was just the two of them and instead had become _something_. 

At least there's one real person in his life who thinks Tony isn’t shit. 

“So what should I do then? Cap doesn’t want my help and I’m reluctant to get my head bitten off.” There’s a small tendril of hope inside him, that maybe things will be ok. That at least Clint forgives him his trespasses, even if Cap and Tony will never get along. 

“Tony, you’re an engineering genius. Don’t listen to Cap.” But Cap is _Cap_.

“Clint, I am the best at what I do, but what I do is think about my mistakes.” 

“Maybe you have made some mistakes, many of them in your past. But the Tony I know now doesn’t fuck up as often as he thinks. And when he does, he makes it _right_.” It’s not like Tony disagrees, but he feels this pull inside him, that he’s worthless. That Howard was always right, he’s nothing compared to Captain America and he never will be. 

“My father, he knew what I was—”

“—your father knew jack shit. He was a fan of Captain Cuntsicle for chrissake! That man is a walking, talking douche. And he’s not infallible. We all see what you do here for us, except for fuckface upstairs, but he’s not relevant. Just listen to me, believe me. If you can’t believe, believe that I believe. You know I’m sane, right? I’m telling you this is true, so just believe in me.” Clint’s voice had gone soft and pleading, a cadence to his words that Tony had never heard directed at him before. He wants to wrap himself up in it like a warm blanket. Something blossoms in his chest just thinking about what Clint has said and how he said it. 

“Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I would be if I didn’t worry so much about what other people want.” It comes out of his mouth before he can keep it in. Clint steps forward, and places a hand on Tony’s cheek, cupping his jawline. 

“You’d be a good one. You _are_ a good one. You let me stay in your shop, and you don’t force me to leave or ask for things that I might want. The way you’re so giving—” There’s something beautiful in Clint’s eyes that Tony wants to understand, decipher. But he isn’t sure he wants to touch it yet with him being so close to the argument with Steve. 

“Look, I should be talking to you about Cap,” Tony laughs, feeling bashful at the attention Clint is directing at him. Visions of their time cuddled together on the couch flick behind his eyes, his brain wanting to redirect all his tension into reliving it. He shakes his head. 

“If you want to talk about Cap, all I have to say is that you’re a credit to the Avengers. You deserve just as much as he does to be treated well. I think you ought to give him a piece of your mind, but in order to do that, you have to believe that you’re as worthy as he is. Can you do that, Tony? You know I’m on your side, right?” And somehow Tony believes that of Clint. Clint makes Tony feel like he’s worth something.

“Yeah, yeah I know.” Maybe Tony isn’t shit. It’s not erasing years of pain and feeling less than, but Clint believes in him. He thinks Tony isn’t all shit. And while he knows Rhodey and Pepper have always had his back, Rhodey knew him from an early age, and Pepper has a conflict of interest known as money. He doesn’t think poorly of Pepper; he just has trouble believing she truly cares for him. 

But here’s Clint, and he’s saying Tony isn’t all of the terrible things he believes himself to be. He’s one honest person who hasn’t cared about the gifts, or wanted them. He’s returned the favor ten times over by caring for Tony when he isn’t able to care for himself. 

So maybe, just maybe, Clint is right. 

“I think you need to stand up for yourself, Tony. He can’t speak to you that way. Especially not in your own home. If he wants to be a team, he needs to act like a teammate. Don’t let him get away with this.” When Tony meets Clint’s eyes, he sees a man who believes Tony to be much better than he feels he is. Why though, with Clint and no one else, does he feel like he can reach that high expectation? 

It fills him with lightness, and he feels like he can be all the people he’s meant to be: Iron Man, Tony Stark of SI, an Avenger, a friend, maybe even a lover. There’s no performance here with Clint, he knows, and he eyes up the other man’s open body language, his tan features and subtle strength. An anchor, someone who he doesn’t have to pretend with. 

Someone who wants him to be like that with the world. 

Which decides Tony. He’s not perfect, not by a long shot, but he’s not going to take anymore crap from Rogers. At least not today. 

“Yeah. I think you’re right, Clint. But I might need some reminders to stay on top of it. You up for the job?” Tony throws him a classic Stark-seductive smile, but with genuine feeling behind it. He doesn’t have to hope that Clint can see him, because the man doesn’t miss a thing. 

“It’s not a job. Not to me. Not when it’s you.” Tony’s breath catches. 

“Yeah?” Clint steps closer, the soft scent of leather and something that defines Clint catches his nose, and he instinctively breathes in. 

“Yeah.” The moment is pregnant with tension. Clint is so close now, Tony in his chair looking up at the other man’s soft face. He wants to touch the weather-roughened skin and trace the map of his five ‘o clock shadow. Clint grimaces suddenly, and Tony all but retracts from him. 

“You gotta confront this now. If you let it fester, it’s going to grow on Cap like a cancer. When you’re done, come find me?” And if that’s not the incentive he needs, he doesn’t know what else would work. 

“I got this.” Clint backs up as Tony bursts forward from his chair and strides out of the workshop, feeling invigorated. He stomps into the elevator, eager to get up to Steve’s floor. 

“JARVIS, is Steve in his room?” The hallway is empty like he expects, and he strides through it thinking only about how and what he’s going to say to Steve. 

“Yes, sir. I believe he’s otherwise not engaged.” 

Well he’s fucking about to be. 

Tony finds himself in front of Cap’s door, and he raises his fist to knock before he can stop himself or talk himself out of doing this. 

Steve opens it quick as a shot, as if he’d been waiting there. Tony has a moment of consternation as to whether he’s doing the right thing, but that fades when Cap begins to speak. 

“Tony, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things, like—like that.” 

“You’re damn right you shouldn’t have. I don’t even care that this is my home you live in, but I won’t be bullied into not caring for this team. The Avengers mean the world to me, and if I want to support them in keeping the world and themselves safe, I will—”

“—Tony, I understand that—”

“—No, I don’t think you do. You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for. But maybe you do. You’re sorry you hurt me with what you said, but you still disagree with me, _and_ Clint, but you’re ashamed to just say it. Don’t bother with sorries or worrying about understanding anything if you can’t understand the basic principle of being apologetic!” 

“I—I, ok. I see what you’re saying Tony, but that’s not fair.”

“You seem to think that all of this is unnecessary, that I’m throwing upgrades at the team because I want something from you all. The only thing I want is to not have to see one of my teammates in a bodybag. The mark of a good product is when you don't have any problems with it; you know my stuff is working by the fact that nothing goes wrong and nothing goes wrong because it’s always evolving to suit what we need.”

“SHIELD provides us with equipment, Tony.”

“And who the fuck do you think provides SHIELD with their stuff? I’m just cutting out the middleman.” 

“You’re missing the point! It has nothing to do with the tablets or other things you just _give_ me all the time!” 

“How selfish of you to think you’re the only one who gets anything from me! I thought you were my friend, and that I was doing what friends do. Maybe I don’t know what that is, but it was never any excuse to not be straightforward with me!” 

Steve rubs his hands on his face up into his hair, mussing it. 

“Ok, I can concede that point. I should have been clear with you.” Tony huffs at him. Steve is still not getting it. It’s not just this one thing. It’s Steve’s entire attitude. 

“But me disappointing you in some way shouldn’t result in you yelling at me like I’m doing this intentionally. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. Because you know I do feel terrible when I let you down. But it seems I let you down every time. So maybe you ought to suck it up. Maybe it’s not my problem. So I would love to stand here and talk with you more about how you don’t realize why you have to be a nicer person to me, but I’m not gonna.”

Tony doesn’t wait for a response, instead pulling out his phone and tapping at the screen quickly to pull up the website for a local therapist’s office.

“Last piece of unsolicited tech,” Tony says, tossing the phone to Steve who catches it before making his escape. He thinks about going to the workshop, but he asks for where Clint is, just to make sure.

JARVIS informs him that Clint is in his room, and Tony has a half-second where he thinks he should wait, but then he buries it under the victory he’s had in dealing with Cap. It’s not so much that he’s happy he told Cap off, but he’s established that he should be treated with respect and not disdain. He’s set a precedent for all future interactions and he’s hopeful that in the future he won’t have to fight with Cap. 

Clint’s room is a floor up from Steve’s. As he gets closer, he feels more trepidation at just approaching Clint out of nowhere, but things have been good between them. Clint makes him feel safe. 

When he reaches the door, he knocks and waits. Clint takes a little more time than Steve did to open, and Tony has a few terrifying seconds of thinking he’s done something wrong, even though he’s just following instructions. But when Clint opens it, that all washes away. 

“Come in.” The other man is in grey sweatpants and a black t-shirt that fit him as well as his leathers do. He tries not to look, he really does, but the slope of Clint’s back and the slight curve at his waist draw the eye. 

Clint sits on his bed then and pats on the spot next to him. There’s no way Tony can say no to that. 

“You did the right thing.”

“I hope you’re sure, because all I know is that it felt good, but whether it was good? The jury’s out.” 

“So what did you say?” Clint puts his arm around him, and it feels warm settling on his shoulders. Protective. 

“I threw my phone at him, and then I ran.” Tony barks out a laugh. 

“That can’t be everything.”

“No… I guess I told him that he was going to have to deal with the upgrades, but that the unsolicited tech would stop. And I may have suggested therapy.” He cringes as he mentions that, but to be fair, Steve could really use some help. 

“Did Steve apologize?” 

“Not really. Not for the things that matter.” 

“So, are you all right then?” 

“Uh, yes, I’m fine. Well, no, no I’m not.” Tony realizes he needs to be more honest with his feelings if he’s going to try this new setting boundaries thing with Cap and everyone else. 

“If you want to stay, you can. Just— If you want to sleep.” Tony’s breath catches in his throat. He shouldn’t impose. But this isn’t the first time they’ve fallen asleep in the same space. Tony knows he’s got a little crush now, and he should probably tamp that way, way down. But it _is_ just sleep. And he can do that without fucking things up, right? 

“Yeah, yeah I’ll stay.” Clint stands up, taking Tony with him, before he pulls the covers down on Tony’s side and pats the bed again, invitingly. And it is inviting. Clint’s sheets are just like any of the other beds in the tower, but there’s something about sharing it that really makes Tony feel like he’s safe, and home. 

Yeah, he’s got it bad. 

He gets in the bed anyway, tucking his feet under the sheets and laying down on the comfortable pillows he purchased for everyone. Clint rounds the other side of the bed and does the same, but turns on his side to look at Tony from where he’s tucked up the sheets to his chin. 

“You can come here any time, you know,” Clint whispers, the air from his mouth tickling Tony’s cheek. They're so close, and it’s so similar but so different from their time in the living room. This is more secretive, like anything they do will stay here between them forever. And Tony thinks that makes it easier, but he isn’t sure that if he does something, that he wants it to just be here, in this moment. Clint makes him feel _more_. 

He wants to keep thinking, but he just mumbles at Clint instead and begins to close his eyes, falling into a deep sleep almost immediately. 

The bed feels amazing now, so warm and cozy. He’s wrapped around someone, and they smell like sleep and home, which makes him burrow closer. The idea of security has never made him feel so aroused before, but he is aroused, and he can’t think of any other reason than the safety he feels right now as he’s ensconced in covers. 

Instinctively, he grinds his pelvis onto the warmth, arms wrapped around the bulk in front of him. 

God, it’s so good. His dick is aching and hard, and he’s got it pinned between his stomach and whoever his bed partner is. He must have picked someone up at— no. 

He’s—

Fuck. 

Tony bolts off the bed, dragging the sheets and covers with him as they tangle up in his legs, and he goes over the side, falling backward towards the ground. Before he manages to fall, he sees an arm shoot out and snatch the covers, which both keeps the covers on the bed and slows his fall to the ground. Rolling out of the mess, Tony stands up and holds his cheeks in his hands in horror as Clint rolls over. 

“I’m so—I’m so fucking sorry. Oh my god. I should never have—” 

“Come back here. Cool your tits.” The disheveled look is one Clint wears well, his facial hair darker and the swirls of his hair making him look debauched, and Tony’s cock gives a valiant twitch, which is not helpful, at all. 

“But I’m—”

“Hard? Yeah. You are.” The little curling smile on Clint’s face takes Tony aback, and he takes one tentative step forward. Clint pats the bed next to him again, and rolls over, assuming that Tony will automatically follow. His feet take him there before he can second guess himself, and he slides in close to, but not precisely behind, Clint. 

From there, Clint takes Tony’s arm and tosses it over his hip with a soft snort, and then Clint nudges his ass into Tony’s front, slotting his cock right into the crevice. It feels unbearably good, and Tony’s fingers dig into the sides of Clint’s hips as he thrusts forward and up, seeking friction from the inside of his pants and Clint. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but it feels oh so good, he never wants to stop, but he doesn’t have a choice. 

“Sirs, I suggest you come to the Penthouse, immediately.” 

“JARVIS, really? Did I code you to cockblock? I’m pretty sure I specified to not ever do that.” 

“Sirs, I highly recommend you come to the Penthouse. Now.” 

“We can continue this later, it could be an intruder.” Clint springs up and starts slinging his gear on, as if this is a call to assemble. 

“Alright, alright, fine. JARVIS, you need a defrag. Real bad.”

“Sir, I have already scheduled—”

“How about a defrag now?”

“Very well, sir.” If an AI could sound peevish, JARVIS is the very definition of a grumpy old British man who has had his manners insulted. Tony doesn’t even care who it is at this point. He’s going to kick their ass. And then he’s going to program JARVIS to never interrupt sexy times upon pain of death, ever again. 

They make their way to the Penthouse via the stairs, neither saying a word. Clint is tense and withdrawn, and Tony feels uncharacteristically silent next to him. He doesn’t need to say anything. 

When Clint stops and listens, reaching down to squeeze Tony’s hand, something bright blossoms in him. No matter how devoted to his duty, Clint is still here for Tony. 

He could get used to this. 

Finally, they’re at the main level, slowly making their way to the elevator. Clint draws a knife, and Tony rolls his eyes at the precaution. As if JARVIS would let any old asshole off the street in. Which begs the question as to who has the ability to just pop in like this?

There’s a man in an older, almost tweed looking suit standing in the living room, gazing out the window. His posture reads SHIELD, and Tony thinks for a moment that they’ve sent their new handler. Which is about when his brain starts giving him answers that he really doesn’t want to hear. 

But it’s too late for him to deduce who is standing there, because the man turns around. 

Coulson.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint stumbles. The fluid grace with which he usually moves escaping him as he registers who the man in front of him is. His foot lands flat on the floor, the noise muffled slightly by the carpet, yet still Coulson turns and looks him right in the eye. 

His stomach drops like he’s falling, heart hammering in his chest so hard that he can feel the throb of his blood moving through his body. 

“You’re dead.” 

Clint doesn’t even recognise his own voice as he speaks. He registers movement beside him but doesn’t take his eyes off Coulson. 

He flinches hard as he feels Tony’s hand make contact with his arm, wrenching it back closer to his body as he takes a step to the side to put some distance between them. 

“You’re dead,” Clint says again. Coulson still hasn’t said anything. 

The elevator dings behind Tony and the doors slide open to reveal the rest of The Avengers minus Thor. 

“Coulson?” It’s Nat, her voice careful and controlled, a little cold. 

Coulson breaks eye contact with Clint to look at Nat, offering her a nod of confirmation. 

“Agent.” It’s about as intimate a greeting as Clint has ever heard from Coulson. Cap strides forwards and offers the man his hand. 

“We’re all very happy to see you’re alive.” Clint barely notices how earnest Cap sounds. He can’t stop cataloging what he sees in front of him: the tailored but out of date suit, those white button-downs he buys from Croft & Barrow, his worn belt loops. 

Clint holds back the whimper that wants to escape him at Cap’s words. Happy is not the word that Clint would use. Confused. Hurt. Emotional. _Terrified_. 

“I’m happy to be alive.” Coulson says back as he shakes Cap’s hand. He doesn’t smile. The relaxing of his face, his jaw loosening, is a sure signal of his approval. It’s only from long exposure to Coulson that he knows this, and he’s almost certain he’s the only one who knows. 

“How, exactly is that?” Tony asks from his place still standing next to Clint. 

Coulson gestures to the couches in the room, an invitation to sit. Clint clenches his jaw at the sheer gall of the man for doing it, not just in the tower where he may have some authority as their handlers but in Tony’s penthouse, his private living room. 

Clint doesn’t sit. Can’t. He stays in the same position by the elevator, back ramrod straight as the others move to the couches. Even Tony walks over after a moment's hesitation. 

Coulson doesn't acknowledge Clint’s refusal to move, and instead just sits himself down in front of the others, lacing his fingers together on one knee. 

“Where have you been?” Cap asks. Clint isn’t looking anywhere but Coulson, trying to see if there are new lines on his face. Lines that shouldn’t be there, lines that should. 

“Private SHIELD hospital out of the country.” It’s not a proper answer, but Clint suspects it’s the only one they’re going to get. “It was touch and go for a while. It was decided that it would be better to keep my condition classified until we knew for sure one way or the other.” 

“So what happens now?” Tony asks. 

“I need to debrief Romanoff and Barton back at SHIELD and we need them there for a while. You two, with me.” Coulson stands and makes his way over to Clint, his stride sure and even. Once he is out of earshot of the others he speaks again, quieter but no less commanding. 

“Let’s go home.” It’s not a question. Clint is moving before he can decide why his legs are obeying. It takes no time at all to get to his room. He hadn’t even settled in, not really, before he’s packing up what little clothes he has. The walls are damaged, and he feels guilty about that. He’ll pay Tony back when he sees him at SHIELD. 

He’s back with Coulson before he feels like he can blink, bag in hand, staring at the man who he thought was haunting him. Now it all feels so inadequate. He’s taken by a sense of rage at how unfair this all is. He’s going to go back to clandestine visits, no acknowledgement in public whatsoever. This is the end of his time here. 

No more Tony. 

His heart clenches, tight in his chest. 

Tony. 

He remembers that he shrugged the other man off him, and that Tony isn’t here now. There’s no one to save him. There never has been anyone, really. 

The ride to SHIELD on the helicopter is silent. Nat sits beside him, but he isn’t sure if this is to offer any kind of comfort or just that it’s their usual position when on a flight. The Triskelion looms in the distance, the whir of the blades dampened by the noise cancelling ear protection. He doesn’t make eye contact with Coulson once. But he does notice how Coulson doesn’t react. Doesn’t seek to meet his eyes either. 

How could he have ever thought that this was enough?

\---  
His bed is flat, the pad of it sinking into the springs below. It’s not the luxury he misses. It’s the care that Tony took in picking out their things. All the times he’s spent eating with Tony, drinking with Tony, existing near the man has softened him. It was more affection in a few months than he’s had in years with Coulson. This place is empty of that. Devoid of meaning; it’s eating at whatever amounts for a soul inside of him.

The next week passes in black and white. He trains daily. Running laps and lifting weights, shooting arrows and guns.

Once again, Nat knows something is wrong, but there’s nowhere to run. Yet all the fears he had about confronting her are drained away. There’s nothing more inside of him to give to her or Coulson. So when she asks, he says nothing. Her persistence fails to work, and eventually she settles for shadowing him. It makes it impossible to see Coulson, because even though she knows about their relationship, Coulson is very private. Which is good, because then he doesn’t have to confront the fact that he does not _want_ to see the other man. 

If there was a door to Clint’s heart, it’s rapidly closing with every failure on Coulson’s part to be a true partner to him. 

There’s still that small wheedling voice that he used to listen to, the one that would say ‘it’s just the job,’ or ‘the work comes first.’ He’s so tired of that. Tony never did that to him. Not once in all the time he’s been working as head of R&D at SI, as Iron Man, has Tony put Clint beneath those things. And they had been friends, friends who were maybe looking for something just a bit more. 

He had forgotten to say goodbye to Tony, and now it feels like it’s too late to call. To explain. What can he even say? He’s here but he doesn’t want to be here? 

This situation needs tackling. He needs to resolve it, someway or somehow. Even though he doesn’t know what he wants, precisely. 

It takes an Avengers meeting to finish it, and it is the hardest and easiest thing he’s ever done. 

Coulson is telling them they’ll be gone for weeks at a time on this mission, and something about it puts a bee in Clint’s bonnet. He had a home with Tony. A place where he belonged and was needed. 

Which is why it sucks now that every one of the Avengers is in the room with Fury, Coulson and a few more assorted agents listening to where and who they’re going to send next on a mission. 

Clint is trying his hardest to make eye contact with Tony, and it’s pathetic, he knows he fucked up, because he hasn’t tried to reach out to Tony the entire time. But seeing him here hurts like a punch to the gut. He’s forgotten how much he needs and wants the other man. The last time they were together plays through his head; how Tony felt next to him, how open and sweet he was. 

All of that is gone, wiped off Tony’s face and body as if it had never been there. 

Clint needs to apologize. He needs to get to Tony. It burns in him and it’s all he can see and think about in his head, is how to have Tony listen to him. 

The meeting is dragging out, made worse by the fact that no matter how much Clint tries, he can’t get Tony’s eyes on him. 

Worse, they’re sending Clint out on a long solo mission. He’s not going to go, but he’ll deal with that later. The meeting ends and Tony bolts from his chair, a man on a mission. Clint isn’t able to stop him at the door, but barrels out of it hot on Tony’s trail. Just as he snatches at Tony’s clothed arm, he hears Coulson from behind him in the hallway. 

“Barton.” 

“Not right now,” Clint directs at the man behind him before addressing the one in front of him. Tony—”

“My office, now,” Coulson interrupts. 

“Leave off Barton—” Tony isn’t quite thrashing in his grip, but he looks spitting mad. 

“Fuck off! No, not you Tony, you stay right here—”

“Office, Barton. Let Stark go.” Coulson keeps his voice low as he speaks. 

“Tony just stay, just listen, hold on for one second, please—”

“Fine! You get five minutes,” Tony says.

“I only need two of that. But just hold tight.” Clint turns around and stalks up to Coulson, feeling certain in what he’s about to do. “I’m not going to your office, nor am I going on that mission. I’m not your dirty secret or your part time side piece. I don’t belong to you.” The other Avengers are filtering out of the room, including the agents, and Coulson’s eyes flick back to them for a moment before he speaks.

“Not. Here. Office, now.” 

“No. Here. We’re doing this here. Out in the open where you’ve always refused to be about us. I won’t do that again. I won’t have it done to me, and I won’t do it to Tony.” Clint turns around and looks at Tony, the man he’s hurt with his indifference. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to not call you, to not reach out. Our time together meant so much to me, and I ruined it by treating you like I’d been treated before. I made a mistake and I want to come home.” 

“You mean that?” Tony has a hunted look on his face, as though he wants to believe Clint, but can’t. Clint steps forward and grabs the lapels of Tony’s immaculate suit coat and hauls him close, planting a tense but passionate kiss to his mouth. Tony gives an indignant squeak and reaches up to hold Clint’s arms. 

“It’s about fucking time.” Nat’s voice rings out in the silence of the hallway. 

“Not in the hall—” Clint lets go of one hand and flips Coulson the bird as he stays pressed to Tony’s face, more desperate than heated. 

When Clint lets go and turns around to face the Avengers, Coulson is gone, like he was never there at all. 

Fury is still there, rolling his eye and grumbling. 

“Let’s go home?” Clint pulls Tony closer, their chests bumping softly against one another. 

“Yeah.”

The Quinjet ride is dead quiet as Clint and Tony hold hands. Cap keeps looking over and shaking his head while Nat doesn’t let the little smile she’s sporting slip off her face once. 

When they make it to the tower, Clint hauls Tony off to his room, planning to make good on what they’d had before. Tony stops him halfway down the hall and flips Clint around. 

“Don’t do that to me again. Right?”

“Never. I’m sorry, and never. I want everyone to know how much you mean to me.” 

“Pretty sure all of SHIELD knows that by now.” 

“Good.” With a tug, Tony stumbles forward and they finally make it to Clint’s bedroom. Their knees keep bumping into one another as Tony mashes his lips against Clint’s, tugging at his bottom lip every time Clint walks backwards towards the bed. When the backs of his knees hit the bed, Clint swoops his arms down to pick Tony up, hauling the other man into his arms before unceremoniously tossing him on the bed. 

Tony’s body bounces, and he gives Clint a wide grin before pulling at his tie and buttons. 

“Holy shit, that was hot.” Tony’s voice is almost a whisper and Clint’s not sure if he was meant to hear it or not. 

It takes no time at all for Clint to whip off his shirt and he dives towards Tony’s face once more, capturing him with a searing kiss. The tips of his calloused fingers start to peel back Tony’s layers, and he finds purchase on the soft skin there, running his fingers over the shiny scars on Tony’s chest. 

Clint is straddling Tony now, his legs tucked into Tony’s sides as he laves his tongue over Tony’s exposed neck, trying to get every inch of the other man’s flesh in his mouth. Tony’s hands trail up from their wandering over Clint’s sides and back to fist into Clint’s hair as he tips his own head back to give Clint more room. 

Clint tucks his knee up in between Tony’s legs and _grinds_. Tony gasps beneath him and throws his head back, wanton. 

“Fuck, I missed you,” Clint says against Tony’s skin, the wash of breath over the wetness left behind causing goosebumps to rise over Tony’s arms. He strokes down them, marveling at the pricked skin. 

“Why the fuck haven’t we been doing this the whole time?” Tony asks as he tugs at Clint’s hair, bringing their mouths back together. Their teeth clack and minute amounts of spittle make their way to their lips. 

Clint hums a noise into Tony’s mouth that would have been an answer if it had been allowed to spill properly. 

They each fumble at the zippers of their pants, overeager. Every glance of Clint’s bare chest over Tony’s is electric, and he deliberately slides himself up and down to catch at the sensations there. Their hands intertwine after they shuck their pants off, and Clint basks in the heat of Tony’s body, his legs sliding over Tony’s in a desire to feel every inch of the man. 

“Need you. Need you right now. Fucking hurry.” Tony is mumbling against Clint’s throat, lips nibbling on the soft skin there, and Clint chuckles. That’s just like Tony, always trying to speed things up when he really just needs to be held and loved. 

Clint glides his fingers up Tony’s arms and clamps down on his wrists, leaning back to gaze down at Tony’s flushed face. If Tony’s eyes are slivers of brown along the edges, pupils blown, Clint’s must be as well. He leans down again to gently kiss Tony as the man wiggles under him invitingly. 

“Please. Clint, please.” Quivering, Tony bumps his chest up against Clint’s, his whole body begging for it. And Clint can’t lie, it’s doing things for him, watching Tony desperate like this. Needing. In a way he’s never experienced a partner do. He pushes Coulson to the back of his mind, and it’s easy, so easy with Tony here in front of him, deserving and wanting all of what Clint is. There’s no artifice between them, no lies, no need to twist themselves into something they’re not. 

“You want it, babe?” It heats him, thinking about how perfect this is. How he gets to have this. 

“Yes!” That’s all it takes before Clint is on Tony again, a flurry of squeezing, kissing, and licking. Tony groans, pleased, and let’s Clint worship him. Clint hikes Tony’s legs up then so he can press his length against Tony’s, and he rubs invitingly as Tony gasps and mumbles more of his need in Clint’s ear. 

His own need hits a fever pitch, and he lifts off enough to wrench Tony’s boxers down, exposing Tony’s weeping cock, almost purple with arousal. It twitches on his belly, stiffening even more under his gaze. Tony is following Clint’s eyes with his own, and Clint darts his back up to Tony, who looks wrecked, as he should. Hungry, Clint dives for Tony’s cock and takes it down in one fell swoop, lips working to lubricate at the base of Tony. 

Tony sharply jerks his hips up before stilling and drawing them back down in apology. Clint anticipated it and moved with Tony’s body, coming back to mid-shaft before sinking back down, his throat swallowing and working itself open on Tony’s rigid head. He uses his hands to pin Tony’s hips now, thumbs digging into the V of Tony’s groin, bruising him. Marking Tony up is suddenly the best idea he’s ever had. He can do this in a way he’s never been able to do before. He can make Tony _his_.

Tony is almost sobbing under Clint’s ministrations, his legs pulled up to either side of Clint’s head as Clint works him over. There’s spit dripping down either side of Tony’s sac, and Clint smears it down to the furl of Tony’s hole before pulling off to lick a broad stripe there. The gasping he hears is complete satisfaction, and he knows that he _needs_ to be inside Tony soon. 

Tony looks debauched as Clint circles the tip of his finger over Tony’s hole, before hooking at the firm muscle there and pressing his finger in to the knuckle. When Tony keens, Clint shudders all over, pressing his head down to lave at Tony’s cock. Working quick to open Tony up, he slides another finger into Tony before pushing in to the hilt. It’s rough without lube, but Tony takes it. 

“Nightstand,” Tony is able to croak out. Clint withdraws to comply, leaving Tony’s ass clenching around nothing. He watches the wrinkled flesh wink for a moment before crawling over to get the lubricant. Before he applies some to Tony, he starts in licking and sucking at Tony’s hole again, shoving his tongue in deep as he suctions at the muscle. 

“God, you’re so good at eating me out. I can’t take it anymore, I need you. Clint, Jesus Christ.” Clint complies by slicking up two fingers and works Tony open once more, liberally coating Tony’s insides. He drags his own boxers off, tumbling over Tony momentarily before righting himself. Tony’s hands reach up and clamp themselves in Clint’s hair, the pads of them rubbing gently at his scalp. It’s heavenly, but it’s not exactly what he wants, and he jerks forward, pressing into Tony a little more roughly than he would usually. 

It’s enough to make Tony wrench Clint’s hair in his hands. 

“There we go. Gonna fuck you good, babe.” 

“Move, move, move,” Tony begs with abandon, clamping his thighs around Clint so he can dig his heels into Clint’s ass like Clint is a horse that Tony can command into a gallop. Clint obliges, pulling back and shoving back in all at once. He rocks steadily into Tony, the sheets jerking with every thrust and Tony with them. Tony holds on tight to Clint’s hair, and Clint presses himself bodily to Tony in order to give him a searing kiss. The sound he elicits into his mouth from Tony is downright spiritual, and he grasps the man’s shoulders in order to pull him down further on his cock. 

“Fuck yes, like that.” Tony manages to get out against Clint’s lips. 

Clint thinks about all the times he’s shared with Tony, the fun they’ve had, and how freeing it’s been, and he just wants to let go. To ravage and own every inch of Tony, like he’s never been able to with anyone else. He wants to give of himself to Tony, seal between them something meaningful and profound. 

But first, he’s going to fuck the hell out of him. 

Hands still at Tony’s shoulders, he forces the other man’s body to curl as he pulls him down even harder than before, the smacking of their bodies obscene in how loud it is. He moves his hands then down to Tony’s hips, pulling and pulling, trying to get as deep as he can inside. Tony thrashes, hands fisted into the bedsheets, his eyes closed in what looks like agony or ecstasy. Clint knows it’s the latter, and it goads him onward, using an arm to hook under one of Tony’s knees and shove it up and over his shoulder. 

The arch of Tony’s neck against the bed leaves his long throat exposed for Clint’s purview, and he scrunches Tony’s body down in order to kiss at it, little grunting noises pressing out of Tony with every thrust. 

“Right there, right fucking there, god damnit, you’re so good. How are you so good?” It’s so warming to hear Tony say it. This is like nothing he’s ever done before. They’re so close and it’s as filthy as it is intimate. He wants to be inside of Tony completely, swallowed up in the other man’s endearments and noisy encouragements. 

“Been telling you I never miss for months, thought that genius brain would have known that was a transferable skill.” Because fuck yes Clint is good. 

Tony tries to laugh but it melds into a long drawn out moan as Clint shifts his knees so he can throw Tony’s other leg over his shoulder. 

“You’ve been missing out. Let me take care of you, honey,” Clint says. His full body is hovering over Tony now, the angle brutal in its efficiency. 

“Fuck I’m going to come like a high schooler, this is ridiculous.” 

“Think you can do it without either of us touching your dick?” 

“I’m going to paint your fucking chest honey. Don’t stop.” 

“Never.” Clint shifts and shifts, looking for that perfect access to Tony’s prostate. He finds it when he hears Tony gulp down a moan, and he proceeds to leverage himself to hit it every time. Clint grins down at Tony, slowing the snapping of his hips and instead uses the weight of his own body and gravity to _grind_ his cock against Tony’s prostate with enough pressure to make Tony arch off the bed with a finality indicated by the deep breath he sucks in. 

When Tony comes, Clint can feel every twitch and vibration of it against his stomach, and like Tony promised, it splats on his chest, a single first shot hitting him in the chin and neck before it sits warm and snug between them, their chests mashing together in a filthy mess. 

“Holy shit.” Tony pants as Clint _keeps grinding_. 

“Oh my god, you’re going to kill me.” 

Clint pushes up a little on his hands and presses his sweaty forehead to Tony’s as his hips keep working. “You’re no good to me dead,” Clint pants back. “Can you take some more?” 

The noise Tony lets out is so near to a whine that Clint can do nothing but bark out a laugh at him. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Without waiting for an answer Clint pulls almost all the way out before slamming back into Tony and setting a brutal pace as he chases his own release. Tony, for his part, just lets him, his legs falling to the side uselessly and his hands gently clinging to Clint’s body, rubbing the tips of his fingers up and down Clint’s sweat-clad back. 

It doesn’t take long, Clint has been ready for some time but has always had fine control, and he thrusts in once, twice more, and lets himself release deep inside Tony. The warmth of it cascades around his cock as he pumps himself in Tony’s ass, and Tony gives a last groan that Clint follows with his own. The heat of it is intoxicating, pulling at his senses and pushing him into one of the harder orgasms of his life. Everything that he is, is being sucked through his cock and pressed into Tony as if his very soul needs to empty itself. 

There was a time when that would have never felt good. To give of himself so completely is nothing like Clint ever thought he wanted. But Tony makes it possible, makes it desirable. 

Clint isn’t sure how he manages to not collapse on top of Tony, but somehow he is able to slowly pull out of Tony and fall to the side to land on his back next to him. He takes one trembling hand and reaches over to land it in the middle of Tony’s chest, where the cooling cum sits in a fine slick. He retracts it, taking a wet finger to his lips and trying out what it’s like to have Tony’s essence in his mouth. 

He thinks it’s the same as any other he’s tasted, but his heart insists that it’s more. Clint lets that happen, lets himself believe and feel. 

“You’ve already fucked the life out of me, you can stop trying to seduce me now,” Tony breathes at him. 

“Good seduction is never finished.” Clint tucks his arms under his head so he can look at Tony without getting a crick in his neck. 

“Well you sir, are getting nowhere near my dick for at least another twenty minutes. I am fucked. Out,” Tony says to the ceiling. 

“Didn’t have to go near your dick this time.”

“I mean it,” Tony says.

“I think the lady doth protest too much.” 

“Protesting is protected in the constitution.” 

“But your dick isn’t.” 

“I _will_ revoke your lab codes.”

“Hmmm no, you won’t.” 

“Fine, get something to wipe me down if you think you’re the gentleman in this equation.” Clint just laughs and rolls off the bed, making his way to the bathroom for a towel. He brings it back wet and warm, tossing it down on Tony’s chest. The other man catches it and wipes at himself before folding it up and returning it for Clint to use. 

Clint collapses on the bed next to Tony again, laying on his side so he can have purview over Tony’s now stretched out body. 

“My fucking hips. I haven’t been that bent since college.” 

“I guess we’re just going to have to get you more flexible babe. Your current training regiment isn’t cutting it.” 

“No, no, I just need time to stretch.” Tony does so now, pulling a leg back up and hooking his arms under it to pull it tight to his chest. 

“Like yoga?” Clint’s voice is teasing. 

“Not like yoga. At all. Ever.” 

“So like yoga.” 

“I will cut you.” Tony eyes him. 

“You wouldn’t. You love me too much.” Clint’s eyes widen minutely after the words spill out of his mouth.

Tony takes a sharp breath through his parted lips before pressing them together hard enough to turn them pale. Clint watches Tony’s throat bob as he swallows then opens his mouth once more. “Yeah.” 

“Fuck twenty minutes.” Clint practically growls as he pulls Tony against him and kisses him.

**Author's Note:**

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